In the House of M
by CyKiESuMMerS
Summary: AU: House of M originally was a plotline where Scarlett Witch puts the X-Men in an alternate reality where Mutants rule over society. UPDAAATED:8th CHAPTER NEW! twiiist.
1. M for Madness

**A.N.: Here is just a little something I whipped up. It is set in the House of M time period, but also my little spin on a prequel before the HOUSE OF M story unfolds. Just some origins I thought would be interesting to see. Please don't forget to review! **

**-M-**

**'M' For Madness**

* * *

In the early days of Magneto's rise to power, mutants benefitted greatly and thrived.

In Massachusetts, an old money legacy family by the surname of Frost, resided and in the early days of Magneto, their fortune grew immeasurable.

This was in part due to the fact that the Frost's were currently fortunate in having born three telepathic daughters.

The first was Adrienne Frost, a beautiful and striking tall girl with lush chestnut brown hair and an attitude that summed up all of the Frost's. With a taste for luxury and dominance, Adrienne was much hated by her younger sisters, and not given much care by the rest of the family.

The three sisters often competed with each other and did all they could to bring one another down.

Having always been the youngest, and most rebellious and devious child, Cordelia Frost loved anything that opposed her family name.

Cordelia dyed her hair black, wore combat boots, and caused the most trouble. It was her favorite past time to try and bother the oldest sister.

There had been a recent incident in which Cordelia, feeling especially oppressed by Adrienne, had used her amateur but still very powerful new powers to sabatoge her.

Cordelia seemed to have the earliest grip and control over her powers of being an empath.

She manipulated people's minds and psyches, causing head aches and mind control.

In other words, she could drive people crazy.

Adrienne was known for her psychometry and backstabbing, conniving ways.

Having hindered these actions from her oldest sister one too many times, Cordelia sought revenge when her sister had met a boy from a different school, and showed romantic interests.

Cordelia was intrigued, Adrienne was very picky and particular about her romances and preferred men in her young age.

Having peaked her interest, Cordelia stayed home one afternoon to discover just who this new boyfriend was.

So she spied on Adrienne who had set up an elaborate seduction in her parent's room, lavishing in the fact that she would be defying her father, whom they all hated.

Cordelia was surprised though, when she saw that this was not some stuffy older man, but a boy who was actually younger than Adrienne herself.

This boy was a treat, he was naive and handsome and well-raised but he obviously did not know what kind of family he was to become involved with.

Cordelia saw that Adrienne was actually happy, with this boy, and Cordelia could not stand to see her sister happy.

Thus, she eventually stole this boy away by using her empath powers and manipulating his brain.

As the love affairs grew heated and the girls clashed, the boy who had been caught in the middle, suffered the mass of the attacks.

Cordelia's overbearing power soon caused him some brain damange and he was not functionable in society anymore after they were through with him.

The middle of the Frost girls was possibly the most ambitious of the three. Her name was Emma Frost.

Their family was abundant in wealth and luxury, but their family lacked love and was thus very dysfunctional. Always wanting her father's affections or pride, Emma often sought it in school.

Having been only a B-average student, Emma still could not win her father's approval, but later in her high school years at Snow Valley School for Girls, her powers began to manifest, often frequenting in nightmares, strange voices in her head, and head aches.

With the manifestation of her powers, Emma began to be able to succeed in school, using the strange gifts to her advantage.

While achieving the top rank in her school, her relationship with her professor grew more intimate and slightly romantic.

In these ways, Emma was most rebellious.

Rebellious little Emma was what her father called her.

Her father found out her ways and kept a close watch on her, and eventually framed the teacher Emma was involved with and caused him to lose his job and everything he had.

After these series of events, Emma's rebellion against her father grew worse and self-destructive, and after many incidents, she was diagnosed and sent to a mental hospital.

* * *

"Institute, clinic, rehab, asylum, whatever you want to call it."

Emma was sitting in her twin bed, tangled in the sheets, with her back against the all-white walls of the tiny room she was to inhabit in her psyche ward.

She felt lethargic and hated her father and everyone else.

She hated the school teacher and her sisters and her horrible father and her apathetic mother and the whole world.

She hated the crazy psychopaths and nuts she was living with and the calm nurses and tedious doctors and therapists.

There was a boy outside her room, causing a ruckus and slamming things and people around, raising hell in his white cotton shirt, white pants, and soft-soled, white canvas shoes.

He was screaming obscene things and defaming the female species and the entire mutant race and calling his nurses 'fucking fascist lesbians.'.

Emma, despite herself, curiously peeked out her now unattended door.

She did not hate this sociopath boy next door.

When the fight died down, and the boy refused, or more like rejected a sedative injection and calmed himself down, the exasperated staff picked up the other wounded members and scuttled off to write down reports and leave the patient alone.

He stood, breathing hard for a few seconds to catch his breath.

He rumpled his brown hair, fixed a canvas sneaker, and turned his head in the hallway to look at the cracked open door to his left.

Emma's eyes widened in the crack as he made eye contact with her, or so she thought.

He was wearing dark sunglasses indoors, but Emma did not question the crazy people around her, if she was supposedly one of them.

The boy stared at her and smiled lopsidedly to one side, "Hullo there, whatcha looking at? These things are a weekly event. Tune in next week, I have some crazy stunts planned."

Emma cautiously cracked the door open a little. Normally, she would have been cold or said something sassy but this was not an ordinary situation and she was in a mental ward.

"You plan these things out? You're crazy."

The boy shrugged, "I'm working on it. Be outta here soon, I hope. I just have to keep up appearances and keep myself entertained until then. This place can be a drag. So why are you insane? Too privileged and bored with life? That it? Daddy's trust fund sheltered you too much to deal with reality?"

Emma narrowed her eyes and tried to hold herself as dignified as possible in her white hospital shirt and pants.

In truth she didn't wholly know why she was there, she just was, one day her parents decided to send her there and that was that. The communication in the Frost family was nonexistant.

The boy walked closer to her and for some reason, even in the stillness of the empty white hallway, Emma was not afraid.

He peered into her face and muttered, "You look like someone I know."

Emma felt resentment at this strange crazy boy who was inferior to her and crazy in this nuthouse she didn't belong in, for judging her and thinking he could assume things about her.

For some reason though, seeing this boy and sensing his mind, Emma also felt an abrupt burning hatred for her sisters, who were out there enjoying a free life.

Usually Emma didn't think much about her sisters, establishing that she did not care for them.

Emma scoffed, "I heard you defaming mutants. Will you stop talking to me if I say I am one?"

The boy snorted, "Pretty little thing like you? Nah, you can't be a mutant. Mutants are horrible, ugly, and sadistic freaks. Like me."

Emma thought about it, and thought that this boy was too handsome to be crazy. The other patients were invalids, pale, miserable, hairless, bulge-eyed creatures of the dark white walls.

Emma shrugged, "We can both be mutants. You don't have a very high self esteem of yourself do you?"

The boy smiled wryly, "Nah, self-loathing does you tons of good."

Emma smiled thinly, "So you're crazy obviously, because you curse mutantkind, yet you are one, and you think humans are superior? Ah, reversed reality, huh? You think the opposite of society these days. Mutants are celebrated and you believe otherwise. Alternate realities conflicting in your head?"

The crazy guy laughed, "What, are you like, some former psychology major or something? Get kicked out of Wellesley or something for drugs and promiscuity?"

The girl shrugged, she was a bit flattered though that he thought she was a college student, "No but I do take psychology class in an all-girl's private prep school. Where do you get off being so pompous?"

The boy merely stared at her in amusement and Emma, despite herself, added impulsively, "I had an affair with my Lit. teacher."

The boy raised a silky eye brow and smiled, "Nice. Was it romantic? Did he read you love sonnets and take you to the museum and did you seduce him against the blackboard?"

Not certain if he was mocking her, Emma looked down. Of course, she was romanticizing and exaggerating her 'affair'.

In fact, she had only shared a kiss with her teacher, but decided not to let this crazy boy know the whole truth and innocence of the affair. Let him assume what he wanted.

The boy with the rumpled brown hair laughed, "So you're in high school? My bad. You're pretty normal for a trust fund princess."

Emma impatiently said, "Why do you keep presuming I'm a trust fund princess? I haven't refuted you but I haven't said I was, have I?"

She tied her shoulder-length blonde hair back in a pony tail with an elastic and looked pointedly at him, waiting for an answer.

The boy shrugged, "You all look alike and act alike. I dunno, you just all seem the same in a way."

Two male nurses in white scrubs were coming up the hall and the boy glanced at them quickly and flashed her a smile before saying, "I'm off then, see you around brat."

Before Emma could huff indignantly, he was scurrying around the corner and into his own room next door.

For the next couple weeks, the boy would come and go, sometimes ignoring Emma and lost in his own world, and sometimes he was sane enough to talk to her and infuriate her with his odd remarks and tactics.

Once a week though, she would peek out her door and see him thrashing about and seeming to try to release this pent up energy in his body.

After an hour of this, he would calm down and the attack would reside, and he would brush it off and act like nothing happened.

Emma soon realized that though he played it off as a stunt, that this was a very real neurosis he had and the look of rage in his face would consume his being and only subside later.

Emma's own head aches, hallucinations, and telepathic intrusions frequented her in the late nights of the white room.

Some nights, the boy would sneak in to her room while she would be tossing and turning, mumbling in a nightmared sleep.

Then he would gently wake her and once in a while, she would wake up, startled, to find him holding her close to him.

Emma did not question nor resist, she figured she had no dignity left in an asylum no matter how much she tried to distance herself from patient status. Also, here, she felt free in a sense of self.

She did not have any obligations to act anyway and could do or think what her heart desired.

They would stay up late at nights, talking and chatting.

Emma, who had gone to a prestigious all girl's school, was still not used to boys and was unsure of how to act around him exactly, but didn't really care since he was different and crazy and it didn't matter.

What she did learn though, was that she liked his company and related to him in lots of ways, and admired his dark intellectual side and his strange rants and theories.

One night, as she slept, he came into her room and when she woke up, he was facing her, his face motionless and quiet.

She had an urge to see his eyes for once, to remove the strange red sunglasses blocking his face.

So she tried to remove them with her hands, but they would not budge.

Using all her strength, she pulled the glasses from his face and then screamed in horror.

A ripping noise sounded and as she pulled the glasses away, she could see thick thread and strings of blood elongating with the distance between his face and glasses.

Thick black thread had been stitched to his face, keeping the glasses sewed there.

As she removed them, blood poured out of the ripped up flesh on his face, marring his handsome features, and with a snap, the strings finally snapped off, leaving some hanging in threads down his face.

His eyes were not there.

In the perimeter of the stitched outlining of the glasses, was just plain flesh, just skin where his eyes should have been.

Blood dripped down and caused red tears where his eyes were not.

Emma screamed and screamed and screamed.

She woke with a start, a bright orb of flourescent light beamed in her eyes and she was being comforted by him.

She frantically searched his face, but he was fine, and his glasses were intact.

The screaming would not reside though, and it seemed as if all those years spent never screaming, suddenly found a reason to come out.

Scott held her face in his hands and hushed her, "Shh, hey it's gonna be fine. It's over, nothing to worry about."

Her screams were replaced by dry sobs and she pressed her nose against his shoulder and let his white shirt staunch the tears.

She felt strangely comforted as she had never been held this way or reassured before in her life.

Heavy footsteps pounded on the linoleum tiled floor and white-uniform-clad nurses rushed in, one heavy woman nurse shoved the boy away while three other men grabbed him to the floor and stabbed a shiny needle in his neck.

The boy flailed and screamed, "NO!"

Emma watched in horror, trying to scream, but she couldn't, it only came out in whispers, "No! Stop! He was helping me!"

The nurses checked her over and gave her a sedative.

Emma watched as the boy's kicking legs in the white trousers became still and his racking cries stopped and finally, the men in the white uniforms picked him and slung his limp body over their shoulder.

One man muttered, "It's isolation ward for this little shit."

The other one said, "God knows what more he would have done if we hadn't intervened. Shit, her parents are the hard type, won't hear of this kind of shit going down in a hospital they're paying for."

For the next few days, Emma felt lonelier than ever and spent the time alone.

When she did leave her room, she would check the room next door with the door ajar, and see that the little white space was untouched and unslept in.

The boy did not return.

* * *

**A.N." PLEEEASE REVIEW! YOU WON'T REGRET IT!**


	2. Familial Ties

**A.N.: Okay so brief summary: Emma and Scott are both coincidentally or not at the same mental rehabilitation center and Emma's siblings have come for a visit and the girls shake up Scott's world once again, but this time its his world in the mental hospital he has been doomed to by them. I'm not asking for flowers or chocolates or even an engagement ring...Just want reviews! Thanksss.**

* * *

**Familial Ties**

**II**

* * *

One day, a nurse came in and escorted her to the dining area where other patients were eating.

Emma's eyes hardened as she saw her sisters and her brother Christian, whom she loved most, but seemed to be very out of it.

Emma could tell that he was already stoned on some hard drugs and wasn't really all there. Wasn't really all her Christian.

The other two she didn't care for, and they made it obvious by their expressions of disdain that they were forced to visit.

She sat down across from them and didn't speak.

Adrienne, being the eldest, resumed her responsibility and high and mighty tone, "Emma Grace, you look a bit too thin. What have they been feeding you here? Absolutely terrible quality, you'd think with father's money they could fancy it up a bit more."

Cordelia laughed icily, "We're in a mental asylum! What the fuck would they want fancy for? The crazies would just shit on the walls or something."

Christian was zoned off.

Adrienne scrunched her nose, "You and Emma Grace have always been such vlugar children. Hasn't cotillian taught you anything? Oh by the way, Emma Grace, we donated your debutante dress to charity, maybe some other sixteen year old girl with less fortune will be able to wear it, and NOT be in a mental hospital."

Trying to see if this hurt her sister and rubbing in the fact that she was losing her prime time in teenagedom, Adrienne surveyed the blonde, but found no emotion.

Cordelia moaned, "How much longer until we can go home? I have things to do, and I am so not going to that tea today, Adrienne. I am almost sixteen like Emma, and I can make my own decisions."

Cordelia then simpered, "Oops! I forgot, Emma can't even make her own decisions, and when she does, she just makes horrible ones like macking with her old teacher! How uncivilized. Tell me Emma, do they follow you to the bathroom here?"

Emma just looked at her littlest sister.

A row of patients stood up nearby and formed a line to take their medication from the nurses who were dispensing water and pills from a box.

After taking each pill, the patients mechanically leaned their heads back and opened their mouth wide to reveal unhealthy tonsils and no hidden pills in their mouths.

As if to save her from this worsening moment, Emma suddenly sensed him close by.

Something about his feelings and brain was different and dead, but nonetheless, recognizable.

She looked and saw him coming in shuffling slowly in the dining room and being accompanied by a nurse.

He did not appear to see her, but she waved to the nurse who knew her, and was seated next to her.

Cordelia and Adrienne became strangely silent.

Emma wanted to hug him, but refrained from doing an act she rarely if ever did and also did not want to seem looser in front of her sisters who still represented a world she was gone from for the moment.

His face was gaunt and narrow, he looked tired and his face was shadowed, but he was still handsome and tried to smile at her meekly, dejectedly.

Emma turned her attention back to her sisters and was about to introduce him, when she realized that they had never even known each other's names.

Adrienne spoke the first introduction. "Scott Summers."

Emma jerked her head, "What? Who's that?"

Cordelia mumbled, "It's...that. The boy sitting next to you."

Emma looked at him, and when he looked up to see the sisters, his face was livid.

Emma whispered, "You're name's Scott?"

Scott put his face in hands and breathed very deeply for several seconds and then raised his face with a cooler demeanor.

"Let me guess. You're Emma fucking Frost."

Emma leaned back in surprise, "Yes, I am. I never told you my name. How do they know yours even when I don't?"

Scott clenched the fist that was in Emma's hand and his whole body shook.

"You're Emma Frost, the middle child, the absent girl who was at prep school. And these are your sisters? I should have guessed! My luck never seems to run out of ways to try and kill me."

Emma wanted to smack her sister Adrienne, who was looking at Scott rather promiscuously like she was a predator almost.

Cordelia's sinful expression of apparent amusement and lust too was not helpful in Emma's hatred for her sisters.

Adrienne began, "Scott Summers was my winter fling and potential boyfriend last year, but dear Cordelia with her conniving powers, hooked him, seduced him, and of course we know she could have only managed that by using her powers no less, not her undeveloped physique, and I'm afraid many conflicts of interest arose, and unfortunately, our fights and games took a toll on Scott's mental health."

Cordelia exclaimed, "Who are you calling conniving? You're one to talk, sis! Besides, you were too old for him, I had more to offer."

As old tensions and feelings arose, Adrienne scolded, "I'm 19 and he was 17, only two years. You dear, are only 15, which is a disgusting age. Butt out of adult talk, dear _sis."_

Emma watched in horror and screamed out, "STOP!"

This caught their attention and the two other sisters stared at her and then guiltily at Scott.

Emma could feel Scott's hand trembling in hers, and she clutched it reassuringly like he would do for her.

She thought to him, and was surprised, when he answered back, but not aloud in person.

Emma froze. Had she just thought something and had he heard it in his head? Had he purposely thought to her and tried to commincate with her head?

She had never done anything like that before.

It was strange to have his voice in her head, but also very comforting in the presence of her despised family.

Scott seemed mesmerized by Adrienne, whose green eyes never left his ruby goggles.

Emma coldly said aloud, "So this is the boy whose life you ruined last term? He's in the same psychiatric ward as me? You people really have no boundaries do you?"

Christian unexpectantly spoke, "Sibling rivalry plus a pretty little boy toy can cause quite a dramatic scene. Cordelia's always been so dramatic, of course she just had to steal away Adrienne's thunder. What more do you expect from our family, Em? We're Frosts."

* * *

They locked eyes. Adrienne's mint green eyes held Scott's red tenderly. Then she saw it, felt it, caught the memory in thought.

Emma caught the whiff of lilac scented candles, mother's bath oils glistening somewhere in the bathroom, mother and father's bed open for them to explore.

Adrienne exquisite in mother's silken lavender bathrobe.

She unsheathed herself from it, stepped out of the delicate layers and folds now on the floor where father's hunting rug covered the polished wood.

The uncertain breath stuck in Scott's throat as his Adam's apple sunk. He, dressed strikingly in a preppy cable knit sweater with a starched polo underneath.

Never seen anything so ethereal, terrible, and beautiful.

So sensuous.

The way she moved towards him.

Then shoving her manicured hand against his sailing-browned bare chest and shoving him back on mummy and daddy's bed.

They sank into the sheets together and her chestnut hair was softer than he'd imagined.

He breathed deliriously, "I love you."

From her, a faint giggle.

Cordelia's hazel eye peeking through their parent's ancient and rustic key hole of an old-money house.

She knew those lips uttering "Adrienne, Adrienne." would soon be voicing, "Cordelia."

Those desirable lips would be whispering and brushing down her skin, on her collar bone. She drew chills just thinking about it, and with her empathy, the thought drew chills from him as well, for what was to come.

Emma snapped and looked to her neutral, sullen brother. She placed a protective hand on Scott's knee and cringed when he flinched.

He was thinking furiously, 'None of it was real, none of it was real. None of it wa-.'

"A-Adrienne, Adrienne, why-why me?"

Emma's sister cast him an intense gaze, "Because your mind was deliciously naive and...quite wonderful. Being in it made me feel so nice. And your physique wasn't so bad either. Satisfied, Scotland lovely?"

Scott flinched at the pet name. Cordelia put in, "There's one thing we can agree on Adree, and disagree on."

Emma looked spitefully at her youngest sister, "Shut up. Both of you!"

Adrienne leaned back and smiled, teasing Scott with an intent look. Cordelia whined, "Emma, listen-Adrienne killed my pet birdie! The one that boy from the British Academy gave me! She just up and strangled the poor thing in her fist and left it on my bed, then washed her hands! Isn't she horrible? Our eldest sister?"

Emma smiled wryly, "It was most likely in retribution for stealing her boy, I presume? So young, Cordelia. You people have no conscience. Scott isn't some person you can just fling around. He's-he's..."

Emma broke off and looked at him hopelessly, getting lost in her gaze. Cordelia did not notice, but Adrienne's cruel eyes narrowed and she smirked, biting her lower lip.

For the most part, Scott avoided Cordelia's eyes, youthfully seductive but holding a sinister quality that aged her spiritlessly.

Her youth and exuberant cruelty combined gave her a forbidden touch that scared Scott and brought back the horrors he had endured at the hands of these reckless and arrogant girls.

Adrienne said coyly, "I see this is where Scott Summers has ended up after we were done with him. Such a shame. A promising boy and what a body!"

Scott clenched his jaw and curled up his fists tightly. A sigh commenced from Emma, and in cold disgust, she prompted, "Mummy and Daddy must have sent you bitches for some reason or motive other than to learn your consequences of past actions for messing with a boy's life! God knows they'd never make you face consequences. Certainly, you're not here to gawk at your sister like you care either..."

Adrienne pouted, "What an awful Frosty you'll be. Can't it be that we just want to amuse ourselves at how miserable you are?"

Cordelia muttered, "I don't listen to what Daddy has to say. He can suck a fat one."

Christian groaned, "Oh boo hoo for you! My sisters are such belligerent bores."

Emma wasn't sure whether she heard her thoughts or Scott's add, "And whores."

All she knew was that this encounter was unbearable for both of them and had they not had each other's presence, the would surely have justified their statuses as mental patients.

A hefty nurse trundled over and announced impersonally, "Alright time's up! Time to say goodbye."

Emma sighed in exasperated relief and Scott scowled as Cordelia winked and blew him a kiss as she left.

Adrienne beckoned the nurse, "OH...nurse! Might I have a word alone with the patient boy?"

The nurse shrugged, "Sure, he don't got no visitors in a while. I'll warn you though, he's a dangerous one. A real menace and nut; came like that! If you get hurt, you've got liability.

Adrienne grinned, "I know, I made him like this!"

Scott unwillingly faced the girl he had not seen in a while, and who had started it all. The girl who had once been in his fantasies and reality, but now haunted his nightmares and was the cause of his fear of women and especially mutant women.

She drew him into a visiting room with sparse furniture. Then she pouted, "Oh Scottie, you're not still angry with me are you? This is the closest thing you'll come to an apology. I'm still...hurt? Of course dear, you got what was coming to you. I know my little brat sister is manipulative, but nevertheless, you did your part and well, I actually sorta liked you! Nobody gets away from Adrienne Frost,like that!" She pouted and simpered at him, as if no time had passed between them. Her long lashes fluttered over her ice mint green eyes and he was tempted for a second.

Scott, despite his long-time rage, hurt, and suffering, felt a lull in his head and softening at her devilish charms.

The boy then grabbed Adrienne's face forcibly and kissed her forcibly. It was a furious and ragged kind of kiss that would be memorable and hard to forget and one to keep wanting, but one she would never receive again. He had seen through her in his nightmares.

The girl was a bit shaken and ruffled, and Scott leaned his face menacingly close to hers and growled, "You and your sisters stay away from me. When I get out of here, I'm going as far from you as possible!"

Of course, this would prove not to be true. But that's later.

Leaving her with the most unexpected surprise, Scott stalked off to his electro shock therapy and would go forth to do more uncalled things that crazy people often partake in.

**A.N.: Remember; not asking for flowers, chocolate or even the ring. JUST WANT REVIEWS! THanks**


	3. Warning:explicit? Afterhours

A.N.: Review please! Thanks.

**Chapter III**

**X**

They just wanted to be close to each other.

That caused trouble for them, or more for him. The nurses actually thought it was kind of cute. Nobody really knew the truth though.

The change began on a day when things were still and slow in the hospital. It was like a slowly savored and melting lazy Sunday. A general ambient lull crept in the previous night and stayed for this day when things were not busy and patients were easier to manage.

The door to his room was open just a slight crack, as usual.

He looked up as she entered, pulling at the hem of her white v-necked patient's shirt.

Her white pants were allowed draw strings because she had done a consistent job of not attempting suicide or being of any danger.

The contoured shadows carving out his devilishly handsome face bewildered her.

There was stillness in the air all around, it was warm and snug and in the tiny white cell they were in, there seemed to be no barriers before them, it was just the two of them.

He was sitting silently, legs apart on the camp bed by one of the white walls in the small square that was his room.

He was bent over, in the process of putting his white v-necked shirt on. His tan arms were submerged in the short sleeves.

Before he could lift his arms over his head and stuff his head through the neck hole, she advanced and placed a hand on his chest and he just looked up at her and they stared at each other.

He stood up to his full height, a bit taller than her.

Not once did she lose the laser-beam like gaze of his eyes through the opaque ruby quartz.

Her hand was still on his chest and his hands were now hanging down at his front, his forearms still in the sleeves.

The white shirt was slung across his wrists and dipped at the center where gravity pulled. It was reminiscent of a white flag for surrender.

Held between them.

Emma's glass blue eyes were unreadable as always, and she stated quite honestly, "I'm not like them."

And that was all he needed. From then on he was hers completely before he even knew it.

That evening, as the nurses made swift rounds locking up the ward and turning the lights off, two young mental patients were interweaved together in one of the cells' twin sized cots that are strictly for solitary use only.

They lay naked in each other's arms, the moonlight outside came through the bars of the small window above the bed and left black and white stripes where the light touched the darkness of the unlit room.

With Emma held in his leanly muscular arms, Scott felt a content feeling he had not felt in a while, probably a feeling he had not felt since when Adrienne had ripped his heart apart as well as his life as he knew it.

The feeling was mutual and apparent in Emma's blissfully peaceful face. Her smooth pink lips were spread close-lipped in a smug and satisfied smile. Her cobalt eyes were unlocked, they were rejuvenated and full of life, sparkling with diamond tears that were from the emotional experience she had with Scott and the immense euphoria she was still experiencing far after their excursion and exploration of one anothers' young and tentative bodies.

She breathed happily, letting out a contented, "Mmmm." Snuggling closer to this boy who had brought her happiness she never knew, she dreamily felt his warm skin with absent-minded fingers stroking his slick body underneath the scratchy hospital blanket.

When he kisses her, she seems to glow in exuberance and in her fit of joy and pleasure, she lets her thoughts run wild and as he kisses her, she kisses back with fervor and it intensifies as she accidentally locks minds with him and there really is nothing between them as both of their thoughts and feelings entwine in the rushing bond they share. She is in his head and he likes it.

She kisses the side of his neck as he is exposed to every part of Emma Frost in their minds.

The closeness is a reality and it is transcended by the telepathic energy flowing between them as their feelings and entire beings become closer.

Scott took Emma's chin in his hand and looked her squarely in the eyes.

He whispered eagerly and seriously, "When we're both outta here, I'm going to come get you. I'm going to take you away and no one will find us. We can do whatever we want, we'll find a Utopia."

Emma smiled and trailed her index finger down the side of his face, down his chiseled cheek bones and jaw, then she trailed it over his lips and was touched by the sincerity in his voice.

She replaced her finger with her lips as she softly sucked at his lower lip.

"Will I really see you again? After this." She murmured somewhat breathlessly in between soft nips at his lips.

The boy, whose tan glistened in the dim moonlight, shifted his body and pinned her down on the cot by grabbing her wrists so that he was on top of her.

With a quirk of his eyebrow he said, "I'd like to very much."

The contrite blonde agreed, "Me too. Don't…forget me."

Scott lowered himself so that he was flat against her skin to skin and brushed aside a strand of her platinum hair, "How could I ever forget you? Do you know how insane that question is?"

A tender caress below the blanket assured Emma about how insane her query was.

For the first night since the head aches had started, there were no voices running through her head, just the gentle hum that was flowing between the two young lovers.

She could hear his thoughts though, clearly. They were all on her but as Emma let her mind drift, she found chinks of battered memories and they all featured the lovely yet cruel mint green eyes that were slightly slanted cattily and shared the same shape as Emma's blues, and the luscious tumble of chestnut hair that Emma knew too well.

Emma even found memories that showed sides of her older sister she did not even know existed. Aside from being painful, this was where Scott's mind became a little tenser and harder for her to reach as these were memories he still did not want her to see.

The mint green eyes changed color to blue and then Emma realized that she was seeing her own blue eyes in Scott's mind and that they did not have the same tint of red the other memories had. Her eyes were locked in his mind at that moment as their rightful color and he cherished that.

The resemblance was definitely there between sisters, but Scott held Emma pure in his mind and what he shared and had with her was far different in many ways with what he and Adrienne had shared.

"Bed-check! -OH MY-."

The young lovers were interrupted by the sound of the door swinging open in time for one of the nurses to see them nude and entangled together.

**A.N.: What'd ya think?**


	4. Rendezvous

**A.N.: Been keeping this in the works for a long time. Hope you read and review! Thanks.**

**Moonlight72- HEY thanks for your kind review! I'm really glad someone appreciates this story! : )**

* * *

*THWACK* "Heeeey Summers! Snap out of it... you landed a few hours ago if I remember correctly."

A lean young man with a mop of thick brown hair blinked open an eye through his ruby fighter pilot goggles which were strapped securely around his head, pushing his chocolate and caramel sun-streaked hair to stick up.

His body, stretched out in a lax position with his arms tightly folded behind his head laying on a shiny black flight helmet, was garbed in olive green uniform, feet crossed at the ankles in laced brown leather boots that had just been polished.

He tugged unconsciously at the v where the top part of his green uniform jumper was unbuttoned to reveal a v-shaped slice of his white cotton under shirt, and pulled out a toggle of chains and dog tags.

Letting a ray of sunlight penetrate through his ruby goggles and in his now wide open eyes, the young man squinted up and reached out swiftly just as another thwack was coming from a helmet almost identical to his, and with a thwack of his own as it made contact with his palm, stopped it dead in its tracks.

"Your heads in the clouds when we're not in them, that's a sign of trouble if you're still up there even when we're clearly back down here. Stay with it, we could have an ambush or emergency drill any minute and you'd be so far behind!"

He smirked, "Oh really, well lucky I'm a light day dreamer 'cause if that were the case, I'd be up and roaring in a second I swear." With that, he jumped up in one fluid motion, erect in a split second before taking a quick step toward his attacker and falling flat on his face.

A muscled hand reached down and he took it gratefully as he struggled to stand back up. The hand pulled him up steadily without effort and so he was brought face to face with someone that held a smug and goofy grin, their locked hands between them.

"See what I mean? Even just a second of your vulnerability and bam, you're dead meat, sugar. So you were saying? Mr. I'd-be-up-and-roarin'-in-a-sec."

Looking down with a perplexed frown, he saw the root of his fall, where his laces were tied skillfully together in complicated boy scout knots, which would have required much patience and precision, meaning he really was as oblivious as his comrade said.

Grabbing the olive uniform of his opponent by a belt loop, Summers pulled it towards himself and looked down his nose at the tip where it met the tip of a slightly freckle-dusted ski-slope nose of a shorter foe.

"Next time the other boys try to mess around with you, I won't be there to protect your honor! You so owe me a new pair of shoelaces, I have to cut these off now, no way I can undo these tiny knots your little girly fingers are capable of."

His opponent tilted a chin, "Ya know ya look kind of cute when you try to be real menacing? Your mother ever tell ya that? And who says I need protecting, I don't need you. Now or ever."

"Well I say your dignity needs me from time to time, seeing as how you are the only token female in a male-dominant field."

"Where were you anyway? In that thick head of yours. Planet Scott Summers no doubt? I hear it's a very heated rock where no living thing or thought can possibly exist because it's so damn foggy and hot-shot all the time."

Scott Summers stared down his nose into the defiant blue eyes above the ski-slope nose and responded, "Well I hear its neighboring planet, Planet Carol Danvers, is a cold frozen place that no one wants to go near because of its gaseous atmosphere."

The ski slope nose cringed, "Aw why do you have to make me out to be so gross!"

He smiled, "Nah I'm kidding, I was just down memory lane, I guess I dozed off..."

"Says he with a far away look in his eyes," Carol scoffed sardonically.

Pulling a swiss army knife out of her pant pocket, Carol quickly knelt down to her knees in front of Scott and began sawing and cutting away at his shoe laces.

"Hey easy there on the leather, cow girl!", cried Scott.

Snow flake flecked blue eyes stared up innocently from below his waist, causing him to swallow involuntarily.

She held up a tangle of strings and was helped up to her feet. "What are you packing there Danvers, I swear you put rocks in your jumpsuit."

Hurt eyes flashed dangerously at Summers who gulped again in a different manner, "That came out the wrong way..."

Carol shook her head, jerking her blonde pony tail, "Nope, I heard you talking out of your ass so I'd say that's how you usually put things out there. And maybe you ought to start lifting more iron, you're just weaker than me."

She walked away from him, her blonde ponytail swinging tauntingly, before those blue eyes flashed over her shoulder again, "C'mon what are you doing standing there like a moron? Let's go to the mess hall, I'm starving for some grub and beans!"

Scott shook his head disbelievingly. It was hard to keep in mind that Carol was a girl sometimes, being the only female fighter pilot in his unit and academy class, but then again just when you thought you got it right, she came up with something to remind him that she was hardier than he took her for.

Definitely no ordinary girl.

* * *

There was a ruckus of noisy young men already filling up the concrete mess hall of the Air Force Academy while the sun sank into the ocean it was stationed by.

Carol walked with her head held high, her golden ponytail swinging, down an aisle in between rows of dining tables. A facetious male peer identically dressed in a white shirt tucked into green army pants, dog tags hanging ornamentally on his neck like the rest of the students, wolf-whistled as she passed, but ducked his head while his seat partner duffed him on the back, laughing at his antics.

Appearing not to have heard, she carefully sat down at an emptier table by the door, a few seats apart from a small group of boys who were shoving down their grub and whose talking blended in with the noise of many conversations in the hall.

Upon settling down, Carol felt a sudden hush come over the table, and sensed glances being darted her way shiftily.

She peered at the other young men, and asked, "What are you guys talking about?"

Being the rare female in her air force, she was often singled out or alienated, and was used to rolling with the punches her status brought her, not letting it afflict her naturally strong and intelligent character.

She had proven herself to exceed all expectations, but every once in a while the seemingly only advanced and respectful guy there, her friend Scott, had to jump in and come to her defense with the rowdy boys.

A boy named Jim from her rank, with the shiftiest eyes of all, leered at her as if holding back a malicious secret he could not contain.

He eagerly asked, "You really wanna know?"

She grew irritated and shrugged, "I guess."

Even more infuriatingly, Jim threw his friend, Gordon a secretive look, smirking as if they were holding a joke over her.

Gordon hesitated, then divulged, "Jimmie was just doing his usual duties assisting Colonel Dean," Jim prided and loved to boast about how he had it in with the faculty leader.

"And he was cleaning through his old files and he happened to find some private information on Cadet Summers. Turns out, our boy scout was a mental patient. Said he did some time in an asylum in Cambridge, Mass. The geek has his screws loose! I knew something was off about that guy, always wearing those strange red sunglasses even inside and at night. But how the academy overlooked a blunder like that is lost on me."

Carol barely took in the overwhelming news, and hopelessly remarked, "Do you know how many rules you broke by exploiting confidential student documents?"

They all knew that it would hardly matter with the colonel since Jim was his assistant.

Jimmie added, "That must be why he hangs around the girly so much and not with the rest of us decent and sane American men. Danvers and Summers sittin' in a tree..."

Carol shot up, bending over Jimmie who was still seated with a smirk on his face.

She clenched her fist over the metal fork she was using, and it twisted and bent in her strong grip.

"You boys really want to go there...?" She calmly looked down at them all like they were gnats.

Even Jimmie with his daring ego, gulped audibly, almost unable to look up at her.

"Go where?"

Holding his plastic tray out, Scott finally joined the table, looking a little lost as he had just arrived. His brown hair was slick and wet, combed back on his head since he had just gotten out of the shower after a boot camp drill.

Finding relief in the distraction, Jimmie's smirk returned and he shot out, "Cadet Danvers was just standing up for you. Pathetic really, it looks like the roles have been switched."

Scott dropped his tray next to Carol and angrily said, "Hey, what did I tell you guys about being disrespectful to Cadet Danvers?"

Gordon muttered, "What makes you think what the babe has to say and what the babe's bitch Summers says matters?"

Within a rapid flash and a loud bang, Scott had chucked his tray at Gordon, not moving except for a swift snap of his forearm.

Peas flew all over Gordon. Curling his fist and flexing dangerously, Scott ordered, "Leave. Get up with your trays and sit somewhere else, or you'll be doing 800 push ups under my boot."

Scattering rather quickly, Jimmie called out behind his back as his friends hustled with their food, "Ooooh what, you got your own lunch table now? We don't wanna be affiliated in the pansy's lunch club."

Gordon mumbled, "We were sitting here first..."

Even then though, he did not want to test Scott's patience, being reminded of the evidence of his possible insanity.

Scott and Carol sat back down in stony silence, and Scott said, "I'm sorry about that, there are some real dimwits around here. What were they bothering you about this time?"

Carol stiffened and quietly said, "Nothing. What are you going to eat now?"

Scott grinned lopsidedly, familiarly, and stuck his hand on her tray, ripping a piece off her bread roll, "I guess I'll just have to eat your food." He said jokingly. Carol met his eyes and grinned back weakly, but after what she had heard, she could not see him the same way.

* * *

For the next few days, Carol added stifled and stand offish to Scott, her fellow cadet and close friend. She avoided him for a while, and kept to herself in her cabin room.

As she sat sprawled out in her bottom bunk bed, hand curled over the spine of an aviation booklet, a hollow echo knocked on her tin door.

She jumped up, and tucked in her loose-fitting white naval t-shirt, into her air force sweat pants. A regulation and dress code was to keep your shirt tucked in at all times.

To her unhidden surprise, none other than Jim was standing on the other side, sullenly.

He tonelessly declared, "The colonel wants you."

Carol thought back to her conversation and aggressive confrontation at the mess hall, and nervously twisted the end of her braided pony tail.

* * *

Knowing exactly where her friend would be if left alone, Carol found him lying down with his hands behind his head in the airplane hanger.

The lights were all out except a single lantern-type glow stick used for night time when signaling at planes.

She approached the glowing neon orange, and stood within its light, staring at him staring at her from the ground.

Seeing her face, he asked carefully, "What are you so happy about?"

She sat down next to him and clutched his hand, leaning forward with a flushed face and an excited smile.

"I've just been to see the superintendent."

Scott quirked a silky eye brow over the frame of his ruby aviator sunglasses and said quizzically, "Oh?"

She swallowed and continued, "He wanted to talk about my grade marks and my skills, and said that with promise like mine, I would be promoted to major."

Forgetting that Carol had been rather distant for a few days, Scott sat up and gripped her hand with his and exclaimed, "Carol! That's incredible, you're moving up in ranks! You really deserve this."

She went on, "With what he's seen of me in class, on the field, and from exams, he says I'd be ripe for the CIA after all of this. He's already writing me letters for recommendation!"

Enthusiastically, Scott proclaimed, "Well this calls for celebration. Lucky's?" He was referring to the local bar that the students often frequented.

* * *

After several rounds of pool, drinks, and more drinks, the two Air Force Academy cadets stumbled back to their base, sloppily singing and staggering, bumping into each other and weaving around the night street.

Carol set her hands upon Scott's shoulders from behind, and hopped on his back, for a free piggy back ride.

He turned over his shoulder to look at her and laughed loosely, then charged forward, wrapping his arms securely behind him, locking her legs in place.

She hollered all the way back, until he sprinted with her on his back to the bottom of the hill leading to their bunks, and then crashed into the ground, shaking her onto it with him.

Carol rolled off and then rolled to the side next to him and so that they were face to face. She cupped his chin and hiccuped in between giggles.

Scott was also in a giggling fit and grabbed her blonde braid, wrapping it around his fist and tugged it playfully.

Panting to strain his laughter, Scott gasped out hysterically, "Now-now stop that-laffin'. Seriously, stop it! How'm I, s'posed to kish you if you're laffin' so much?"

For a moment, her giggling subsided to a halt and she stared at him and whispered teasingly, "So you do wanna kiss me, sugar?"

He stopped playing with her hair and declared, "Very much right now. I've never wanted to kissh you more than I do right this second."

Settling down, she tried to sober up her face, putting on a serious look. She quieted her hysteria and nodded and looked him in the eyes through his dark shades, "Okay..okay..."

He propped himself up on his elbow and reached his hand out to curl a lock of flyaway blond hair behind her ear, and then cupped her face, his fingers tangled in her loosened hair.

He shifted and leaned forward, and she stared wide-eyed at him, then burst into giggles as he was about to close in on her lips.

This caused him to start giggling again, and they both collapsed against each other panting and laughing too hard.

She put her arms around him as they laughed like that against each other for a while and kind of wrestled him about the shoulders.

Still wheezing laughter out, Carol wiggled forward and cupped his ear, then whispered loudly into her hands to his ear, "Guess what?"

Scott asked, "What?"

Giggling even more, Carol confessed in her whisper, "I've been wanting to kiss ya too."

So they did.

Still giggling, the two friends kissed sweetly, the tension finally cut.

They lay at the bottom of the grassy hill under the moonlight sharing secrets and kissing in between shared giggles.

With her hand underneath the v of Scott's olive green button up, and rubbing his chest over the white undershirt, Carol who had finally sobered up a tiny bit after some time, asked solemnly, "Why were you at a mental hospital?"

The question seemed to shake the young man and he looked at her, stunned, "How did you know about that?"

She bit her lip, "Jim peeked into your files and told me..."

Scott sat up, and ran a hand over his face.

Carol sat up with him and put a hand on his arm, "Don't worry, I don't...really care anymore but...I'd like to know why..."

Scott quirked a brow at her over his protective shades and said, "Then it shouldn't surprise you I'm a mutant. Well, a few years back, my head took a few...mental blows...inside...from these two crazy girls I met. They were mutants. And then things just weren't right for a while...my brain waves had been manipulated too much and I just about exploded. After that experience...I wasn't the same guy, and my thinking was all backwards and I was afraid of girls. I also had hallucinations and visions that seemed to make me believe that the world was against mutants, and hated us, and that sounds crazy in today's society. I thought all mutant women were evil and something in me just snapped... I got into some trouble at the...hospital too and by the time I got out, things were definitely different, but I was able to finally move on and start my dreams of being a pilot. I got some help along the way, 'cause there was no way the academy would just take a nutcase. That was one of the hardest parts...about the whole ordeal."

Carol asked, "What were the other hard parts?"

He paused, and looked her in the eyes with a pained expression.

* * *

Scrambling to cover up, a skinny girl in just a bra and panties screamed, as a group of nurses and security were ripping a brown-haired boy away from her roughly with punishing force and speed.

He too was clad only in his white briefs, and shouting at the top of his lungs, trying to wring himself free and twist away, towards the girl on his cell bed.

A burly man in scrubs stripped the sheets from the twin-sized bed and then put a large hand around her arms, trying to keep her still and quiet.

She was screaming, "NOOOO! NOOOOOOO! SCOTT!"

Her pretty and youthful face was twisted with many emotions, and she stretched her thin arm out hopelessly, reaching and straining for the boy.

She sobbed loudly, struggling against her restrainer even though it was futile.

Exerting all of the strength he could, the resisting boy caused quite a struggle.

He had to be subdued to the ground, his face locked against the ground and his arms behind him, people on top of him.

He was able to wiggle out of the grasp, puling his head free, and tried to face Emma.

"EMMA! EMMA! JUST DON'T HURT HER! PLEASE DON'T HURT HER IT WAS MY FAULT! THIS IS ALL MY FAULT! DON'T TOUCH HER, I'LL KILL YOU ALL I'LL FUCKING BLAST YOU ALL TO PIECES WITH MY EYES IF YOU DO! EMMA!"

He yelled out, his voice getting raspy from the effort and volume.

Another security guard and two male nurses put their arms around him, all attempting to envelope him and keep him still.

Scott tried to remain standing, closed in by these people, his arms were pinned against his own body, hung down and bound to his torso by the arms circling him.

He struggled even harder, the veins and tendons of his neck muscles straining as he tried to get out of the hold, and get to Emma.

A female nurse ran to the aid of the man holding onto Emma, as she was worked up into a frenzy also, desperately clawing to get back to Scott.

One of them shouted, "Take him out! Get him out of here!"

The group surrounding Scott tried to force him towards the door but he jumped up wildly, in his binding of arms and bellowed, "LET ME GO! LET ME GO!"

Scott popped one of his shoulders up and smashed the face of one of his captors, with his shoulder.

The captor fell back, only to be replaced by two more nurses.

With a lurch, they were able to pull him through the door.

Before they disappeared, Scott stuck his head out and hollered, "EMMA! I WILL COME BACK FOR YOU! I WILL FIND YOU! WE WILL SEE EACH OTHER AGAIN I PROMISE! JUST DO AS THEY SAY AND IT'LL BE EASIER FOR YOU! EMMA!"

Emma strained, every vein and muscle in her body, and she cried out, wailing, "SCOTT! I WILL WAIT FOR YOU! I'M GOING TO WAIT FOR YOU! ...I-I LOVE YOU!"

It was a pivotal moment, and right before he was jerked out of sight, Scott's body fell limp in the arms around him and he murmured, stunned,his voice raw, staring for the last time at the girl he had come to know inside and out, "I love you too. Emma Frost."

Then he was gone, no more echoes of shouting and clamor. It was just Emma now, left in his stripped bed, shaking from the aftermath, in her underwear, with nurses holding her down.

They were talking around her, about her, but she was numb, as she stared hollowly out the open door of her tiny cell.

Someone passed a pill to her, and water, a syringe was injected somewhere but she did not feel any of it, the sounds around her were faint and distant to her.

Soon she was asleep without even realizing it.

When she awoke, tied down to her bed with restrictive sheets securing her in her bed, she felt as if she had a blackout and forgot where she was momentarily.

It was completely lit up in her room, but from looking out the small square window, she could tell it was dark out, and completely void of any sound. It had to be sometime late, perhaps after hours.

Her head was pounding, her mouth felt dry and as did her eyes, yet sticky tears had dried to her face, and some blonde hair had stuck to it.

Not caring or feeling anything around her, she got up slowly, sluggishly, but was able to rip off the sheets tightened and tucked over her.

Walking barefoot out to the hallway, she noticed that it was completely dark.

A cool draft that came from nowhere caused her to notice she was wearing a hospital gown.

She could guess that she had been out until the next night.

Fearing the worst, she turned to the door next door, and pushed it open with a slight jab of her fingers.

She stepped in.

The single bed in it was stripped of its sheets and empty. It was completely empty, just like how Emma now felt inside.

There was a rumpled white v-neck t-shirt crumpled on the ground by the bed, and Emma picked it up, breathing it in, against her nose as she fell to the bed while she inhaled.

She curled up as small as she could in the bed and fell asleep again from mental exhaustion with her face buried in the white shirt, still smelling faintly of the wonderful boy she had met.

Three sharp pats on her face woke her up the next morning, and a younger nurse in training sympathetically announced, "Your parents are here, Emma, will you come out with me?"

Having no other choice, she nodded.

Another nurse appeared at the door, and the young nurse looked back and said, "She's right here, just wanted to sleep, in...you know who's bed, I guess."

Still clutching the white t-shirt with no intent on letting it go, she shuffled barefoot down the long linoleum hallway and into a small office with white-painted cinder-block walls.

A pouchy man with a tie on, sat at a desk across from Mr. and Mrs. Frost and her two sisters.

He gestured towards an empty chair besides Emma's mother and said, "Ah, Emma, please come sit."

Emma stiffly stood behind her parents, not wanting to be near either, and remained standing in her large hospital gown.

The man nodded, "Alright then. You're going home today Emma. Your parents have agreed, and with consultation with me and the staff of course, that you may be ready to go home, and, er-."

"To put it plainly, we just cannot leave her in a facility like this with her acting out like this still...And with questionable patients, I would be worried about the safety of my daughter."

Mr. Frost interrupted, crisply laying down his verdict.

He continued, "You will never see that young man again, understood? We have made sure of it, even arranging him being moved far far from here, or you, so he cannot see or speak with you ever again. The hospital will help make sure of that. Try to even look for him, but with the measures we have put up, that nutjob won't be going anywhere near you ever again. You will never see him again, think of him again, and this whole incident will be forgotten, understood?"

Cordelia snapped her bubblegum bubble and smirked, and Adrianne chuckled, with slanted, catty green eyes, "Our middle sister is leaving the asylum and coming home...no longer a virgin? Oh leave it to the little vixen to find unhealthy love in any rotten dump."

Nothing could phase Emma at this point as she stared blankly at all of them with tired, tear-swollen eyes.

* * *

Carol stared at her friend's profile, and she faintly urged him on, "And then what happened? When you left? Did you try to look for her and come back to her?"

Scott sadly shook his head and said, with his arms wrapped around her, "I was sent to a harsher place, a half way house of prison and clinic, and it was hard. But eventually I got out a year later, and I tried to look for her, I went everywhere but its like her parents were a step ahead of me, they made her vanish from my existence. I had no idea where she was then, and no way of finding out, I asked around and did as much searching as I could for months, sometimes I didn't even eat, she was all I could think of. Her sisters weren't of any help either, it-it's like they wanted me as an object, as something to be owned, they each wanted me for themselves, not willing to share or anything with each other, and especially with Emma. It was like a grown-up sister-rivalry game to them. Knowing that they made me damaged goods if they couldn't have me for themselves almost made them feel better, like I couldn't possibly belong to anyone else anymore."

He shuddered and closed his eyes, the Frost sisters being a particularly traumatic experience for him to even talk about.

Carol rubbed his shoulders thoughtfully and nuzzled him, tears in her eyes, "I'm so sorry, sugar, all of that sounds horrible."

Scott grinned though and kissed her head through her hair, "I'm alright now, I just get these memory flashbacks once in a while but they've gotten better since I met a good friend like you. If you haven't noticed I don't exactly get along with the other guys here either. I just have to accept that she's gone from my life though, and I guess I could see it as a consequence of my actions, but I don't regret a thing. I just wish I could see her again, but I've come to accept that it's alright, I just hope she is happy and I'm sure she moved on soon. It's a lost love and whatever's meant to be, will be." He grinned at her shyly, and shook his head free of old thoughts.

Kissing her again, he laughed, "Hey don't look so sad, it was in the past, my past, but it's over and I'm here and I'm fine, don't worry. What did I ever do to deserve this attention from the hottest ace fighter pilot in the U.S.?"

She smiled, and nudged him, "Aw, shut up. You say that to all of them, don'tcha?"

Scott laughed, "Oh yeah, all the other plentiful girls here, no Carol, you're the only girl I've met and liked since those few years ago. It's taken a while, but when I met you, I kind of woke up. My past is over, it's only what's in front of me now, that matters."

She blushed at that, "We have graduation in a few hours now, walk me back to my room?"

* * *

_A little ways down the road..._

A handsomely uniformed young man, a little bit older now, squared his shoulders and stared around the ballroom of the elegant Air Force ball and class reunion he was attending. He had just flown in that evening, from a round trip mission that involved his stellar piloting skills, and was now dressed in the formal U.S. Air Force uniform, adorned with more badges and medals after he had graduated from the academy.

Spotting a familiar muscular figure, he jauntily stepped over to a woman in a long red ball gown and tipped off his uniform cap, showing his sparkling, combed and gelled brown hair.

He bowed chivalrously and smirked, "Long time no see, Ace. You get more beautiful every time."

The woman looked curiously over, her blonde hair curled lusciously. "Oh Monsieur Summers, what a delightful surprise to see you! I was sure you had died in that dog fight over the coast of Europe just yesterday. I heard."

Scott smiled back, "Nope, just flew in tonight, in one piece. Aerial combat can't kill me, when I always win."

The two friends had kept in touch and kept their friendship casual over the years after they graduated, but both had busy careers. Both often being on flight missions and in the air, barely had the time to reconnect, but every once in a while when both friends were on the ground, they would meet and go back to their academy days.

He confided, "Actually just flew my last mission for a while, I'm going to be kept on call for shorter more local missions for a few months, now which means I'll have more time to stay on the ground and maybe...settle down a bit...How has the CIA been treating you?"

"It's work, but if I tell you, I'd have to kill you, Summers. But that's nice to hear that you'll be sticking around for a while...So your heads not gonna be up in the clouds as much anymore?"

He quipped, "Nope, I think I want to hang around on Earth for a bit as long as there are some interesting prospects for me to hang around. So what do you say, Carol? Will you stay the night with me tonight?"

"Why, Summers, I thought that was the plan all along, isn't this usually how our reunions go? I just thought you'd put a little more subtlety into it like you usually do."

He said seriously, "No, I mean, will you come home with me tonight...and stay the next night...and if things go well..maybe the next? And...the next."

Carol rounded her blue eyes, "Are you asking me to move in? What, when's the last time I saw you? It's been two months and it's always like that, we have intervals, that's how both our schedules are, you can't just drop this bomb on me right now!"

A few older officer looked over at them, offended at the b-word.

She added, "Plus, I have an erratic schedule! You'll never know when I'll be home or not, or when you'll see me again. Or if! We both run that risk."

Scott grinned wider, "You said home like you already live there, see, you agreed, you're coming home with me and staying forever. There's no other question, Danvers. With me on the ground more, we'll have time, we'll make time. I'm accustomed to that sort of schedule and lifestyle, I couldn't be a better fit."

Wrapping her hands around his neck, Carol gave in, "How can you still do this to me after all this time?"

The handsome air force pilot smiled at the pretty CIA agent and said simply, "I get you."

Pulling her hand, he gently lead her to the ballroom where the officers and their wives were waltzing. Holding her steadily, Scott gripped Carol's powerful hand and the two danced, blending into the formal, official elegance of the alternating and buoyant pairs spinning around in polished shoes.

* * *

_Several months from that night at the ball..._

Rolling out of bed, Carol yawned and stretched her toned frame magnificently, before shuffling over to the bathroom to brush her teeth.

She came back into the bedroom, with Scott's air force shirt on, and her hair a tangled mess.

Picking her dress off the floor from the previous night, she flung it over an arm chair and then collapsed back onto the bed, stirring her sleeping partner.

He rubbed his eye underneath his glasses and groaned, "Well hey there gorgeous. How do you make my shirt look so good?"

She playfully nudged him with her bare toe and leaned in, kissing him on the nose. "Sugar, what do you want for breakfast? I'm going to put some coffee on."

Groaning as he sat up, Scott said, "I'll help you make breakfast, just wait, I'll be up in a minute."

After cracking his neck, Scott stood up and stretched his wingspan out.

Carol admired his form and body from the bed, her eyes lingering over every smooth ridge and muscle on his body.

Shaking a leg out, he finally lumbered to the kitchen of their shared apartment in San Francisco.

Wearing just his boxers, Scott began to heat up the frying pan, and reflexively stuck his hand out behind his back as Carol hurled some eggs at him, which he caught precisely, but with controlled grip so that they did not break.

After they both worked together flipping pancakes and setting the table, Carol sat down to a mug of coffee, and then Scott swooped over the table, setting a plate of a large, cheesy omelette in front of her. "Extra cheesy for the lady, enjoy your Summers' world famous omelette."

Forking some of the hot meal in her mouth, she said through stuffed cheeks, "Hah, world-famous? That's only possible if you mean I'm your world."

He sat down with his own plate and dug in. They had lived together for several months now, their casual and playful relationship growing each day, although there were long times apart sometimes when both or either one had to leave for work, but their understanding of how they worked seemed natural to them.

Carol asked, "Are you ready for your trip today?"

Scott cleared his throat, "Ready yes. Ready to leave you again, though? No."

She made a face and stuck her tongue out, "I know, that's how I feel every time too. I'll miss ya, Sugar. But I'll be hoping for your safe return in a few days. I'm not due for work until next week though, that's when I'll be gone for a bit."

Scott knew how her work with the CIA was, so he knew not to even ask about specifics.

He pulled his hand up from beneath the table and opened his palms under her chin, "I got you something."

A shining pendant on a pure silver necklace tumbled out. It was an aviation wing, and Carol could not have asked for a more perfect gift.

She let him clasp it around her neck, and bashfully looked down at the glittering pendant.

"It's beautiful, I love it. Thank you so much, Scott. I'll think of you by it."

Scott shared a look with her for a moment, but then it was interrupted by his pager going off.

He glanced at it and muttered, "Ugh, gotta go. They're asking me to report to base ASAP."

He quickly shoveled food into his mouth, then cleared his plate and dumped it in the dishwasher. Running around the apartment, he began to get ready.

Cramming his legs into his jumpsuit, Scott briefly stopped next to Carol who watched bemusedly, to kiss her, then grabbing his things, and shoving a hat on, he was out the door and hurriedly told her, "I"m sorry I have to go now! I'll be back in a few days, try not to miss me too much! I'll see you!"

Then he was out, and Carol tried not to be saddened by what she was used to from him and herself.

Not knowing what to do with the free time she had without Scott and without her life-consuming work, Carol drew up a bath for herself, then noticing that the fridge was out of apples, she ventured down to the grocery store.

As Carol walked up the stairs to her apartment, she turned her key in the door, but learned that it was already unlocked.

Cautiously going in and setting down her grocery bags, Carol spun around as a woman stepped into the room.

She had brunette hair with two strange white streaks as bangs.

The girl was dressed strangely, even for San Francisco, and being a CIA agent, Carol kept calm, being used to threatening situations.

She asked, "Who are you? Wait, are you from the KGB?"

Th girl growled, "I'm Rogue, and I'm going to make this the last day you ever live."

Hardly bothered, the strong former pilot and CIA operative surveyed her attacker.

* * *

_1 Year later._

He held his head down, his tousled brown hair grasped in his hands, as he bent over his knees with his hands in his hair, sitting in a white leather chair.

He did not look up, but began to speak, "I'm here because the Air Force gave me a leave of absence and told me to go to therapy. The government mandated that I see a psychologist. I should've been seeing one after I got out of the sanitarium but I haven't and I've been fine for all those years until now. It's just...doctors...and white rooms and...psyches and stuff kind of...freak me out after everything."

"What do you mean about the sanitarium? Why were you there?"

He clenched his fist in his hair and replied, "Just...some problems. She asked me the same thing...the night before graduation. And that's the first time I shared with anyone else what had happened."

His psychologist, eye glued to notepad, probed, "And what did you tell her? Actually, first, by this she, we mean the reason why you are in here today, am I right?"

The young man nodded, with his face down.

He broke down slightly, "I just-I don't know why all good things keep getting taken from me. All the people I ever cared about are always ripped out of my life. It always happens, and it never hurts quite as much as the first time, but it doesn't make any more sense the second or third...or fourth or whatever time around. This-this fucking tragedy, it hurts so much, it isn't fair, I should've been there for her, I should never have left for work. It's all happening again, and regardless, it reminds me of the same feeling I had the first time around this kind of thing happened to me, but I thought I was over that, I had to be, there was no reality in me pining for a lost cause. But it's all coming back, the same reminders."

"You cared deeply for this woman?"

"Yes, she was my friend, my buddy back at the air force and she helped me move on with my life, and helped me see relationships with women as a possibility for me again. I have major trust issues...rooting back to why I was at the crazy hospital."

"I understand. Completely. Would you mind going back to what you said about the first time? I notice you keep saying that, what do you mean? Is this a pattern in your love life?"

Sighing, he continued, "Well the first time..the girl wasn't murdered, but then again I have no way of finding out that either, if she's even alive, which I'm assuming she is. It's...almost harder for me to talk about that, when it happened years ago, than talking about what happened recently."

"That is understandable...there are some things we have more emotional association with depending on the magnitude of the situation at the time, it's all situational, and of course, the first time, is always well, the worst, because it happened first, and the less we get to talk about what happened in the past, the more painful it is to think about."

"Okay. I was in high school..when I met this girl from Massachusetts. I fell for her fast, and easily. She was my first closest thing to a girlfriend...but she was older than me. And she was one of those...rich snobby girls who treated others like dirt, but I didn't see that, for some reason, there was something about to her that she showed me, that made me like her. She seduced me, and I thought she was wonderful and that what we had was real, but...I mean, well I forgot to mention that she was a mutant, and she had...sisters who also had powers. And the youngest sister, she was younger than me, but she um, well also seduced me eventually. She was...childish but powerful, and she had mind powers that controlled me sometimes, she made me feel things for her I would never have felt on my own...and when Adrianne...I mean-her older sister, the one I was involved with, found out...Well...she was furious.

Her cruel streak really came out then and I saw the side of her she had not had as much around me, magnified and I think it really just broke her heart, but she didn't even know she had a heart, so she was just merciless as a result. She really had a competitive and intense sibling rivalry with her sisters, and so then the attacks started, and my head just became a mental battlefield for them. They were...very very powerful girls, even then... And their constant power struggle in my head, confused my brain and I had to be committed to the hospital. It was awful...but then...I met her...This-this girl, the real reason I coudn't get over all this for so long...

By some sick twist of fate though, she turned out to be the middle sister of the two girls I was involved with... But...she was different...we told each other everything and she was...my best friend. And I...I guess I acted stupidly and we got in trouble and I had to leave that place, and I was threatened, to never try to reach her again, I was told I could never see her again, but before I left, I promised her I would find her and that we could be together. I promised, and I knew I would do anything to come back for her. And I did. But that proved to be impossible. After a year I had to give up, I had no lead or anything anywhere after all that searching, I couldn't keep up my promise... I couldn't find her and I failed. I failed her. I doubt it mattered to her though, I'm sure she moved on faster and I just hope for the best, that she is happy now. There were still some...times when I ache, and I miss her, but of course differently from how I miss...C-C-Carol...because missing someone who is dead forever and someone who is probably alive is very different. But...the girl at the hospital...we were brought together in some strange way and she was my first love, and I accepted that she will always have to just be that. My first love.

There were still parts of me that were fighting to find her, but what could I do? She literally vanished from me, there is no way I can find her now, and that alone killed me. So I guess this is the second time I ever talked about this...The first time was with Carol...she got me to open up about that..."

There was silence.

He looked up and lopsidedly grinned, a little grimly, "Well what's wrong? Aren't you going to say anything?"

He found himself staring at a woman doctor sitting across from him with a black blazer on over a white blouse, wearing a matching skirt to finish the suit.

She had wheat blonde hair stuck in a bun and rectangular, thin, black framed glasses perched on her nose. He locked eyes with her pale blue eyes, his red lenses reflected in them.

She had the tip of a pen to her lips and she was contemplating him with an unreadable face.

There was something he found soothing about her, calming already, though her prettiness was intimidating. He figured her calm effect was typical of a professional psychologist.

"What did you say your name was? Your name is censored on my files, the government does that sometimes. I can read your thoughts, but I prefer not to during sessions, and I'm getting very strong emotional stress and feelings from you, but I won't read your thoughts unless you consent."

He replied as if it did not even matter anymore, "Scott Summers. My name's Scott."

The woman's pen dropped and clattered on her notepad. She said faintly, "You don't say...You look just like him...I only bothered to stop writing and look up after I heard...what you were saying..."

Scott was confused, "Um?"

Then a fog seemed to be clearing from his confused face, and suddenly he sat up straighter and gripped his knees.

The therapist lowered her glasses, and then took them off, and she declared, amazed and astonished, "I-I guess I should have introduced myself too had this session not been meant to be confidential...I'm...Dr. Frost. M-my name is Emma Frost. Does that ring a bell for you?"


	5. The Patient & the Shrink

**AN: R&R!**

** Leh-xp: THANKS FOR THE REVIEW! I love your story btw if you didn't already know lol. **

* * *

Scott found himself in front of a white wooden door. He fiddled with his newly starched collar fretfully and half hoped that the person inside would not answer the door, and half worried that she might not. He had not felt this way in quite some time, and his previously dormant nerves threatened to spill all over the porch he stood on in his polished leather shoes.

He had debated getting flowers or not on the way there. As he tried to avoid his reflection in the brass knocker, with his ruffled brown hair and black collared shirt underneath a black blazer, his fist trembled around a large bouquet of white orchids. He had to admit, he was pretty rusty at this...whatever 'this' even was.

It was all too confusing.

He quickly tried to comb his hair back with his fingers, but that only ruffled it more.

The door swung open and wafted the delicate smell of the orchids about.

A woman, his newly appointed psychologist to be precise, stepped out in a white cocktail dress, her platinum hair pinned up elegantly. She looked so familiar yet so different from when he had last seen her.

Scott swallowed, and attempted to speak at the sight of her, but could not make a sound. He closed his mouth and instead, shoved his hand out, holding the flowers to her.

He tried to smile, nervously, and was met by her cool blue stare.

When she smiled as if to challenge him, waiting for him to speak first, he blurted out, "Pretty! You look very um pretty."

Her smiled spread even wider,and she took the flowers, sniffing lusciously into the white petals.

"Thank you, Scott. So sweet, as always. I'm glad that hasn't changed at all. Though, I'm gladder that you got even better-looking, when I had thought that wasn't even possible."

Scott smiled goofily, blushing at his cheek bones, and pushed his red glasses up his nose.

As she proceeded to step out, he held his hand up behind the small of her back, but then froze when he saw as she went in front of him, that her dress was backless.

Immediately dropping his hand like the good little soldier he was, he cleared his throat and tugged his collar, wondering what the hell kind of night he was in for.

* * *

Jazz music set the mood in the seaside restaurant Scott had chosen. They were seated outside by the shore, the ocean stretched out beside them as their view.

Emma clinked her glass of wine to Scott's over a single candle flame and said contritely, "To a miraculous reunion of old friends...and may I add lost lovers."

The wine had gotten to her head, and glinted mischievously in her eyes. Scott sighed with nostalgia and drank, then declared, "I can't believe you're in front of me. I never thought this would happen, I-I waited so long."

She confessed, "I'm not sure how to be around you after all this time. It's like I know you, but the circumstances now are so different... I missed you all these years and one day you waltz into my office when I least expect it."

Cutting tenderly into her steak, Emma asked with a raised eyebrow, "Tell me about her. Carol, I mean. I am still your therapist now, after all."

Scott put his fork down thoughtfully and confided, "It's still so hard to accept that she's gone. She was such a big part of my life...Well, she was my friend at the Air Force Academy, and we looked out for each other. She was..attractive and nice and also tough. She was a no bullshit kind of girl, and one of the best fighter pilots I've ever met. She's also the most talented CIA agent in history...Or was. It's just such a waste...that she had to go. She kind of reminds me of you though, actually. You have different personalities, but she had blonde hair and blue eyes, though darker, and she was from Boston also. I'm sure you would have liked her if you met her."

Emma drank deeply from her glass and nodded. "She sounded lovely. And exciting."

Scott stared at her for a moment, then burst out chuckling. "When did you get to sound so formal? I just have this memory of you as a girl...remember how we used to talk?"

Emma tilted her head and responded, "You should ask yourself the same. You look so...grown-up. But your hair hasn't changed much, has it?"

Scott scowled and flattened his palm against his hair. "It's been a while for me...I've been in such a daze since Carol died, that I haven't gone out much and haven't bothered with dressing up for so long. I almost forgot how to do anything."

Emma chortled, "I like it! It makes you look, like you."

Scott drawled out with a wry grin, "Enough about me, you must get sick of having to listen to other people complain all the time. Tell me about what you've been up to."

Their third course was served, and another bottle of wine brandished.

"Then after I earned my degree in psychology, I immersed myself in my work and avoided dating... I'm afraid my past experiences kind of put me off of the dating world. I suppose I know it's unhealthy, but, I always felt like I was waiting, in the back of my mind..." Emma concluded.

Scott replied, "I know how that feels... This loss with Carol is so devastating because she not only was important to me, but she also gave me the hope of moving on from someone I thought I'd never be able to see again. She was the only one though...but the whole time...I-well you know how I feel about you."

Emma quirked her lip, "Feel? Not felt?"

Shrugging, Scott answered, "I'd like to see you again outside of therapy. I know, this is a lot right now, and it is a bit confusing, but maybe if we take things real slowly..."

Emma gripped her cloth napkin, her ears straining to hear what she had been dreaming of hearing since the fateful night they had been torn apart.

A heady aroma of cologne filled the air and a man with a scraggly black goatee and black hair stepped towards their table. "Dr. Frost? Is that you?"

Emma disdainfully looked over and cordially nodded, "Mr. Stark! Tony, how are you? Fancy seeing you here. I saw your name a few times in the paper recently, and thought to give you a call, but I forgot..."

Tony Stark bowed graciously and wiggled his eyebrows, "I wish you had called, Doctor."

The eccentric man pointed his brows up as he turned to Scott.

Emma abruptly threw her arms forward to gesture at him, "Oh, mind my manners! Stark, this is Lieutenant General Summers, of the United States Air Force."

Tony exaggeratedly jumped back, lifting his brows and taken aback. "This...boy?"

Scott scowled again and raked his hair back as best as he could with his fingers.

Tony persisted, "Of the United States you say? That's an awfully large title for such a youngster. They start them young nowadays don't they? The elite of the elite of the U.S. You must make a lotta figures, you sure don't look it though."

Scott uncomfortably mumbled, "I don't get a lot of time on the ground to settle down..."

Tony swung his attention back to Emma in good spirits, "I would never have guessed that you'd be entertaining dates with the United States military men. Call me sometime if you'd like some more...adult fun. Here's my card. I'm working on a new project that the government-" Stark side eyed Scott pointedly, "doesn't know about, and your colleague Dr. Mc Coy is on my board, he's been a huge help.

Tony flipped a red and gold business card to Emma and bowed once more.

Scott watched Tony's retreating back and remarked at the emblazoned business card, "Pretentious, much?"

Emma laughed appreciatively and explained, "Tony thinks he can get away with it, being a billionaire genius. But his sort of 'charm' isn't exactly my taste."

"What is your taste then?" 

"Someone who makes me laugh at the mundane things in life, and who looks tasty in uniform, and preferably a mental patient who keeps his promises, even after many years."

Scott watched as Tony sat down at a table with a strawberry blonde woman and a small crew of wealthy elitists in furs and suits.

He grinned, "Well you're in luck, because I might qualify for some of that. Though I can't take credit for keeping the promise...It was some sort of fate that brought me to you, it was Carol who brought me there. If I hadn't been grieving so much for her, I would never have needed to see a doctor."

Emma tipped her glass up, "I won't ever cease to thank her."

* * *

Scott took care of the bill and took Emma home.

He walked her to her white door and hesitated before embracing her tightly.

Emma embraced him back, and the two long lost friends forgot how many years had passed, and hugged as the 17 and 16 year old star crossed lovers they had been once.

The years of longing and searching were closed between them now, and finally Scott released her and saluted in a military stance.

"Goodbye then, Emma."

Emma unlatched her door but then stopped and asked, "Would you...like to come in, Scott?"

The brown haired pilot stuttered, "Uh, well. It's getting late...But I suppose I can."

He followed her in with his hands in his pockets and she took him upstairs to her door.

Scott whistled at the spacious loft she kept and exclaimed when he saw her bedroom, "Wow, it's just you living here? Your second floor is about the size of my entire apartment."

"Why do you act so humble? You make a salary for some of the richest men in America, and you're complaining about living in an apartment? Why don't you use your money?"

Scott shrugged, "I dunno, I don't have a lot of time, like I said, when I'm home for a while to spend any of that money. I mostly donate to charities, and I guess I just never cared for having a mansion or anything."

Emma mocked, "How refreshing."

Scott jumped up suddenly when Emma came up behind him, slipping his jacket off his shoulders.

He resisted out of reflexes and stiffened. The platinum haired girl who had grown to be this woman, pouted, "Relax! I'm only taking your jacket, that's just the proper thing to do for a guest."

Her slender hands brushed over his hard muscled arms covered by his black button up shirt.

He gulped and tried to think of flying in the clouds with no distractions except the wide sky.

She sauntered over to her well-stocked bar and poured herself a drink. "Want a drink?"

Scott called out, "Sure, whatever you're having."

He caught himself staring at her bare back revealed to him, and so he looked down at his feet. Emma chuckled without turning or looking up, "You don't have to keep looking away you know... I wore this dress for you. You, of all people, are allowed to stare. Actually, I insist that you, and only you, stare."

Scott tried to mute his thoughts, remembering that she could read his thoughts.

She brought him a crystal full of brandy and then sat besides him on a velvet white loveseat.

The warm liquid hit his stomach and warmed up all of Scott's sensations.

Hardly realizing when he had reached the bottom of the heavy crystal, Scott felt himself being drawn closer and closer to Emma.

She kissed his cheek abruptly and that triggered years of frustration for him.

He sat up and pushed her back on the sofa and fell upon her in ardor.

As things heated up, Scott suddenly sprang up and crawled back, off of her.

His tousled hair and frazzled expression bewildered Emma who stayed leaned back against the cushions.

Closing his top button, Scott stood up and grabbed his jacket, mumbling, "I should go... Emma, you are my best friend, and it's been so long and I want to do this right. I respect you so much and I want to show you that, and I'm a little bit confused right now with everything that's happened..."

Emma looked down in disappointment.

Scott knelt by her side and grabbed her hands. He asked eagerly, "Can I see you tomorrow? I can't bear leaving you now, but I want to make sure I don't rush into things."

Emma thought to herself, "Out of respect for me or Carol?"

Sucking in a deep breath of frustration, she managed to smile and kissed him on the cheek. "I won't keep any promises this time, Scott."

After he left, Emma laid down in her bed and pulled a red and gold glossy business card from her purse. She then rolled her eyes and flicked Tony Stark's card over her shoulder.


	6. The Former Heiress & her Nut

**AN: A couple notes...Thanks to DarkCrono15 for very insightful reviews! I was so happy when the review count shot up! I changed and edited a few things around thanks to your suggestion, so the first two chapters have been reorganized for easier reading, and I added titles to all of the chapters for consistency. Also I would shout out here, but I replied to your reviews on PM.**

**Leh-xp: THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH! Hehe you're awesome. I'm glad someone like you is reading this story! Oh and oops, sorry I got your name mixed up with another author, so ignore that blunder please! Thanks for your awesomeness! XOXO**

**The Former Heiress & her Nut**

* * *

A black haired and bearded man in a fancy pin stripe suit stepped out underneath the open blue sky, looking up and shading his eyes with large designer sunglasses.

A jet streaked across the sky above him, barely visible.

The sound was deafening and yet so fast it was almost inaudible.

Next to him, a woman in a gray suit and a white lab coat thrown over it looked up as well, squinting at the sun.

The jet made several loops and fancy flips in the air and the man whistled.

"Your little boy is quite the aviator. His plane is state of the art as well. He could do wonders on my board of research. I need an aerodynamics person and maybe if I could get my hands on an engine like that..."

"Tony, if I know Scott, I know that he would rather eat poison than work for a corporate sellout of a maverick like you."

Tony smirked, "Maybe I'll just have to settle on getting my hands on a fine craft like you." He reached out behind her and grabbed her behind.

The woman turned to him startled and narrowed her eyes, shaking her head.

He laughed, "Well, why did you allow me to tag along then Emma? You must want something from me...Something the little boy can't give you..."

Emma's nose twitched irritably and she said, "It was you who persisted on coming along."

The sound of the jet grew louder as it grew bigger and closer to the ground

The wind stirred slightly, as the jet droned and made its landing on the strip of the outdoor hanger.

When it came to a full stop, the glass top popped open, and a lean young man in a fighter pilot helmet jumped out, landing sturdily on his combat boots. He was wearing an olive green jumper.

His face lit up at the sight of Emma, but then soured when he saw who was next to her.

He called out, "Emma! What are you doing here?"

He slipped his helmet off and walked over to them.

Emma smiled, "I just wanted to see you before our next session. Tony wanted to do his own snooping around the hanger."

They followed Scott as he walked over to the indoor hanger.

"Well, what a great surprise, what can I do for you Mr. Stark?"

Scott unzipped his jumpsuit and stepped out of it, clad in air force stirrup pants and a thin wife beater.

He hung his jumper up on a hanging rack and wiped his hands on his tank top.

Tony proposed, "I'd like you to do some test flies for me, I have this new equipment that needs the proper handling and you would be perfect for the job. Of course, I'd offer a salary, name your price."

Scott lifted his wife beater above his head and threw it in a laundry bin. Emma gaze at his torso and the browned muscles rippling.

His wind tousled hair ruffled slightly by the breeze. He thought for a moment, then flashed a white smile on his tanned and slightly sun burnt face. "I'm afraid I'm going to be devoting much of my time here, getting back to my work, I'm sorry Mr. Stark."

Tony's smirk faltered, and he cleared his throat, "I said you could name your price."

Scott stared bemusedly at Emma who met his stare with a slight smile. "Money isn't everything to me, Mr. Stark. And as much as you might think I need some polishing, I have plenty of money, and certainly don't need any more of it."

Stark's face twitched and he said crisply, "You can never have enough of it."

Scott walked them over to a door in the hanger, that led to the inside of the building.

Shaking Tony's hand firmly, the half naked man said, "Well, as much as I'd love to stick around and chat, I've got to head to the lockers and get some clothes on. Unless you want to follow me there too."

Tony pursed his lips together and Emma looked intrigued by the prospect.

Scott laughed slightly and then nodded his head at them, before taking off to get dressed.

* * *

In the psychologist's office.

Emma tipped her glasses down her nose and looked at Scott, awaiting his verdict.

Scott started off, "I have some things I'd like to talk about in here. So you see, last night, I went out for the first time in a while...And I took this amazing woman out to dinner, and the way things went, well, I wasn't sure whether to call it a date. But I don't think it was supposed to be."

Emma probed nonchalantly, "Well, how do you feel about this woman? Are you interested in her?"

Scott cupped his chin in his hand and looked at her. "I've been taken with her since the first time we met, and now that I've seen her again, I'm sorting out all these feelings and I'm not sure what to make of it. I don't want to rush into things, when I've been waiting for this so long, I don't want to mess anything up."

Emma leaned forward and perched her hand on his knee, "Scott, you can be honest with me, in here."

Scott admitted, "I feel like the infatuated kid I was back then." He broke off his neutral tone and said, "Emma, you make me feel exactly like how you made me feel back then, I don't know how after all this time, but there it is."

Emma set down her notepad and leaned back in her arm chair, setting both her arms on the armrests. "You do the same for me Scott, and it is driving me wild. I moved on with my life and I have a career now, but here you are and that stupid, gorgeous grin of yours is just the same, lopsided, and your stupid hair, your stupid fit man body...You make me feel like a 16 year old girl again and it's frightening, to be honest. I've spent years with the same peers around me, yet made no friends or lovers that I genuinely liked, and here you are again, and it's like something just clicked, there's no one else for me, and it amazes me how you and I can still get along so well when I can't get along with anyone else even if I've been around them for years." She bit her lip, afraid that she had revealed too much, something she was usually against.

Scott asked, "Alright, put what we have aside for a moment, and please tell me this as a psychologist... Do you think it would be fair to either you or...Carol if I moved on right now? The thing is...you know I've had you in my mind this entire time, but my life with Carol...it's not something I can forget either, and I'm still so confused. I cared for her a lot...and I'm sorry if this isn't what you want to hear. But, I did, and I even...loved her. But, I love you, and I always have loved you. You were just lost to me...And I don't want to rush things, but I am...in love with you. I always have been. I can say that now as boldly as possible because I know I mean it."

It took all of Emma's willpower to not lunge across the coffee table between them and ravish her patient.

She remembered that she cared for Scott and respected him, so tried to remain even as she answered his question. "I think that Carol cared for you also, and seeing what jet setters both of you were...I'd say that she would understand completely, and perhaps even want you to be able to move on with your life, as she was always doing, whether it was flying to a new country every day or committing to a man like you. But that is just my opinion, and of course I have my own biases. So it is really up for you to do whatever your...heart is telling you to do. You have been in grieving for a very long time Scott...When will it be enough?"

Scott nodded and thought for a moment.

Then he stood up and briskly said, "Well, thank you Emma, that is all I needed to hear. I have to go now, I've made an important decision. Would you mind if I dropped by later tonight?"

Emma could tell he was not about to tell her what it was, and almost regretted whatever she might have said to make him flee like this.

Later that night, Emma lounged in her loft dressed in a white lingerie set that left little to the imagination, with its intricate ribbons and lace. She sipped on a glass of champagne, hoping and wondering when Scott would come by, if he would at all. She put a short satin white robe on and left it open. A girl had to be ready, just in case.

The doorbell rang and she ran down to greet the door, but stopped in front of the door and tried to appear like she hadn't just run eagerly, before opening the door.

Her face fell slightly, but she tried not to betray her disappointment.

Tony Stark stepped in without asking for permission, and licked his lips at the sight of Emma.

"Had I known you'd be waiting for me, dressed like this, I would have come sooner."

Emma rolled her eyes. "What do you want, Stark?"

Tony grinned, his eyes dark, "You know what I want."

Emma drained her champagne flute and hesitated, Scott wasn't showing up...

Tony sidled up to her and reached over to...

Emma's fist struck him straight across the face.

Tony fell back, his hand only inches from having undone the ribbons on her lingerie.

Tony stood up straight and cackled, "Oh you want it rough, lass?"  
He grabbed her wrists without warning and pushed her down.

The weight on Emma suddenly disappeared though and she opened her eyes.

Someone had lifted the man off of her and thrown him against a wall.

Tony grunted and rubbed his back.

Emma's eyes rounded in horror, "Scott!"

Scott looked baffled, not sure what he had just done or walked into.

He looked over at Emma, to see if she was okay.

"Scott!" She called out again.

Tony had stood up and staggered over behind Scott, then cracked a sucker punch at Scott's jaw, his fist suddenly encased in a scarlet iron fist.

Scott fell, clutching his bleeding mouth.

However, he jumped up to his feet and grabbed Tony about the collars. He as on the verge of shouting, "Alright, playtime's over Stark, I think it's time you leave."

Hoisting the billionaire Iron Man up with the lapels of his jacket, Scott threw him as far as he could out the door and then shut it with a bang, seething.

"Scott...!"

Emma tried to rush over to him, but Scott turned from her and yelled, "Not now Emma! What the hell was going on here? Did I interrupt some of your more "adult fun"? Oh gees, I probably made such a jealous looking fool of myself..."

Emma grabbed his arm and reassured, "No! NO! It's a good thing you came, it wasn't what it seemed like, you did the right thing. Thank you, Scott. Tony came here and without warning, he just...well it's a good thing you came. My night in shining armor..." Emma attempted to beam at him, despite her fallen composure and shock at what had just happened. She trailed a finger down his arm over his sleeve.

Scott looked at her, and his expression softened. He clutched her shoulders and asked, "Gees, are you alright? Did that slime ball hurt you or-or touch you-?"

Emma smiled, her eyes crinkled sincerely and she touched the corner of his lip that bled a little, with the back of her fingers. "No, it's alright, I'm just...glad you came." She hugged him close to her and Scott's shoulders sagged, and he put a hand behind her head, petting the soft blonde hair and with relief he sighed, "I'm just glad you're okay. I'm sorry."

Emma tried to disperse the tension and clasped his face in her hands, and cheerily asked, "Now, how can I ever repay my hero?"

Her eyes lustily ran down his body.

Scott took notice of her dress attire and as if noticing for the first time that he was holding a barely dressed girl, released her as if she was suddenly hot as coals.

He backed away and announced, "Why are you dressed like that? Were you...was it for Tony? I-I'm not here for...that kind of thing. Don't be mistaken."

Emma looked slightly offended, but she recovered quickly and said, "NO, this was...actually for you...I thought...well...Why not, Scott? Was the decision...that you don't...want this? You don't want me?"  
Scott twisted his lips and paused.

"Um...Emma..."

Emma turned to hide her face and wrapped the short robe around herself, covering up a little more.

"Emma...It's a lot for me right now...And I do...want you, I always have. But that's the thing, I always have, and I don't want to-."

"Rush into things! I know, Scott, but then never? You don't want to now, and you won't want to ever."

Scott tried to turn her back to him, but she refused.

He let his hands hang limply by his side, and admitted, "I didn't want this to be like this...It certainly wasn't the way I planned..."

"To break my heart again, Scott? You can't just come into my life now after being dead to me for years, wondering what could have been! Only to walk out on me again like this! Do you know how long I've been dreaming of seeing you again? I know I shouldn't expect things to just go back to how they were when we were teens...But seeing you and...it just feels so right..."

He said stoically, "Emma. You're fired. I'm firing you as my therapist."

She turned to look at his face, fearing the worst as it was about to unfold. He wanted her out of his life again. Forever.

She looked down though, as he was kneeling before her.

He pulled a small velvet black box from his pocket and held it up.

Without smiling, he said, "Emma, will you please marry me?" He had a puppy dog expression and a glossy brown lock of hair fell out of place and curled over his brow.

She screamed out loud. Then, she lashed out, and slapped him across the face, hard.

"Are you crazy?! You said you don't want to rush into things? What are you trying to do to me, Scott?!"

Scott stood up and apologetically said, "I'm sorry...I don't know, this just feels like the right thing to do. I didn't want to rush into any intimacy with another woman, I didn't want to get too intimate with you too fast, at least not before we get married...And I know for sure I want to spend the rest of my life with you, and getting to know each other again, catching up on the lives we missed out on...I want to marry you, and seeing you again just made me realize I can't lose you again, I can't ever be apart from you again. But if you're not ready for that decision...I'll go then."

She grabbed his arm and then stretched her left fingers out, tears swelling in her blue eyes.

He grinned lopsidedly, and knelt back down, and delicately kissed her hand, before sliding the sparkling diamond and ruby encrusted ring onto her slim fourth finger.

She collapsed onto the floor, against him, and let herself be enveloped in his strong arms. He kissed her forehead fervently, and clutched her as if he never wanted to let go again.

He chuckled and closed her robe over her body, securing it shut with his hands, "Why do you have to be wearing this thing? It makes it that much harder for me to keep my hands off you!"

She kissed him hard and he ripped away from her, groaning. "Argghh...I can't control myself around you! But we need to wait until marriage, I want to do this right."

Emma merely grinned happily and kissed him again, running her hands through the soft brown hair she had missed.

That night, they lay in Emma's bed together, fully clothed.

She lay on her side, her cheek nestled against his broad shoulder, and her hand rubbing his chest. She pressed her nose against the white cotton t-shirt on his chest and kept sniffing deeply.

He looked over at her strangely and laughed, "What are you doing?"  
She inhaled his scent on the shirt again and murmured, "I won't be needing a relic anymore." She reached below her bed and pulled out a pillow that had an old white cotton v-neck shirt as its pillow case.

Scott looked at it, "Is that my old..."

Emma nodded, and whispered, "I kept it in secret, I just couldn't get rid of it, even as I got older..."

He turned on his side to kiss her and rested his hand on her hip which was now covered in modest sweat pants.

"Good night, Emma. I love you."

As she sank against him to drift off to sleep, he mumbled, "I always have."


	7. X Years Later

AN: Sneak Peek: Sorry...but it wasn't over! I didn't intend for it to end there, I just wrote a conclusive end of the chapter, maybe I should end there, but that's not what I had in mind. Short bit just to let you know it's not done! Thanks for your guyses really helpful and constructive reviews I mean it!

DarkCono15: Yep thanks for letting me know about the typo, I do know how to spell knight correctly, I just type fast sometimes so I think I miss keys. Thanks for all your help along the way!

warfolomei: Thank you for reading this and reviewing! My apologies for the little mistakes, I can't afford all the books so I don't keep up with all the arcs so I just find what I can from tidbits and haven't read the full House of M!

Guest: Don't be sad! Thank you for reviewing, your comment was very encouraging!

* * *

A little boy with fair hair and blue eyes wrung his hands together wistfully as tear drops fell from his face.

A woman in a gray suit wrote down notes on a notepad, concentrating on the young boy.

"My dad was a genius, he said I could be one too."

His doctor, Dr. Frost, had read in his files that his parents had been Reed and Susan Richards, Reed had been a super genius scientist who worked with his wife, both having been given abilities due to radiation altered genes.

They had died unfortunately in a space accident, leaving Franklin, a nice little boy who bounced from foster home to foster home, being an orphan. Emma tried to stay objective, but her heart went out for him, reminding her of her own dear husband who could have been the little boy sitting before her. Scott had also been an orphan, and her thoughts also went to her own little boy waiting at home.

Wind and rain tore up the night sky with a violent storm as Emma locked up her office and went home for the evening. It was howling outside, and the trees were battering their branches against the windows to flashes of lightening when Emma pulled up to her lovely rustic brick four-story manor estate in Hartford, Connecticut.

She ran in her black leather business heels through the pouring rain on her long rounded pebbly driveway.

Throwing her coat off and shaking her umbrella, she called out, "I'm home!" She breathed in the scent of candles, dry wood, fire hearth, kids, crayons, and ginger bread dough baked in the oven.

She took in the warmth and coziness of the inside of her dark home.

She flipped the lights on, waking into the living room. Her children were sitting around a candle and greeted her eagerly.

Alex, a slim young man with a brown bowl cut jumped up and cried out, "Mom! You're home!"

A teenage blonde girl with freckles on her nose smiled, "The twins are asleep don't go in there!"

Emma looked around at the toys and stuffed animals scattered around, and then into the dark and silent room where her youngest were fast asleep, oblivious of the lightening storm outside.

She put her hand in Alex's straight brown hair and scrunched it up fondly, "What did I tell you about wearing shorts during cold weather?

"Aw, mother, we have indoor heating! The fire place is on, I'm warm, I won't get sick don't fret." Alex slumped on the floor and rolled over.

"Meg, has your father called?" 

Her eldest daughter twisted her lips, "No, daddy hasn't rung and he didn't come home when he said he would. He's never late! For anything! It's dad!"

Emma looked worriedly out the window and at the turbulent skies.

He was supposed to have flown in from a plane mission he was flying.

In this weather, it was hard to see how any plane could have flown in it.

Meg softly asked, "What if his plane crashed or something?! Or fell?"

Emma sat beside her daughter, kicking her heels off and hugged her, "Enough of that rubbish talk. Your father has survived far worse, and is an excellent pilot, he may have just delayed his flight."

Meg shook her head, "Nuh uh, I was talking to him a little with the radio walkie talkie he gave me, he was in the air."

The sound of the front door opening and closing interrupted them, and Scott walked in, soaked from the rain, in a black turtleneck, and holding a briefcase.

Emma leapt to him and wrapped herself around him, not caring that he was wet and would soak her too, "Scott! Darling I'm so glad you're back!"

She kissed him, much to the disgust of her children. Alex stuck his tongue out and moaned, "Mommy erase my memories please, erase this image from my mind!"

Meg yelled, "Get a room you sickos!"

Scott laughed and threw gifts from his travels at his kids, before running to his master bedroom to get changed into dry clothes.

Emma followed him, giddy with the excitement that her husband was in one piece and back.

As Scott stripped out of the wet clothing and put on his pajamas, he looked down while buttoning his top, and stated, "There are reports of a body that was found, some Jane Doe who was alive and fine, and had memories, but no clue of who she was. She couldn't tell the officials exactly who she was or where she was from. I saw a picture. It-it looks like Carol, Emma."

Emma dropped her own clothes and stared wide-eyed at Scott, unwilling to believe what she had heard.

She shakily put on her silk nightie and brushed it off, "I'm sure it could be anyone Scott, you're tired after your flight, let's go downstairs and have a late dinner with the children, they've been dying to hear your adventures."

He came up to stand behind Emma and put his head against the back of her shoulder and sighed, "I'm going to go down to the police station tomorrow when the storm clears up. They need to identify her...if it is...her...well, anyway. I was wondering if...you'd like to come with me."

Emma withdrew from him, "Your wife going with you to identify your murdered flame? For what, moral support while you reunite with her?"

"You know it's not like that...I just know I can help if it is...her. Think about it, will you?"

Emma turned and paused, then left to join her children.

Scott came down after her and picked Alex up, slinging him over his shoulder and spinning around, Alex bellowed in delight.

He slammed Alex on the couch besides Meg, who was looking down and texting furiously on her phone. Meg squealed and jumped up when Alex smacked down right next to her.

Alex looked at her phone, sticking his tongue out at her, "Who ya textin', your boyfriend?!"

Meg rolled her eyes and made a noise of discontent at Scott, "Daddy! Do something!"

Scott swooped down on the sofa and put an arm around each of his children and scooped them up, spinning them in a full circle before throwing them together on the couch again. They screamed. He grinned lopsidedly at Meg, "Tell Oli I say hi and that he's welcome to dinner if he wants."

Meg kicked Alex away from her on the couch before curling up and texting away.


	8. P for Psyche

AN: **DarkCrono15: My bad but I fear that the part about the fantastic 4 kid was actually unnecessary...! I just put it in because in House of M Emma is the therapist for Franklin in that reality. Thanks for reviewing! I always wondered how Chris Evans could be both an Avenger and a Fantastic 4.**

**Guest: Yesss thank u! You're the best.**

* * *

The girl from the small white cubic room of a mental hospital in Cambridge, served dinner to her children and husband, the boy she had met while in the same asylum.

They were now grown adults with a family together and much different lives. She was an accomplished child psychologist and he was a pilot for Mutair.

Staring at one another over the table and laughter of their young and well-raised children, their eyes met, she easily found his underneath his ruby sunglasses.

They saw the same girl and boy they had been when they first saw each other, in generic white hospital clothes and stripped of all their dignity and sanity at a troubled time in their teenage lives.

A smile tugged at her lips, as they held their gazes. She could never forget the first time she had laid eyes on the most good-looking boy she had ever seen. She remembered the second time she had seen him again, when he came back into her life when she had lost all hope.

Now she could look at him all she wanted, for the rest of their lives.

It was too good to be true.

A chunk of tomato hit Emma on the face, breaking the spell between her and her spouse.

Her daughter yelled out, "Dammit, Alexander Christopher Summers!" She emulated the full name her mother used in scolding the boy.

Emma grabbed the young blonde girl's thin wrist, "Meg what did I say about using that sort of language at the table?"

Megan rolled her eyes, "Like your mouth is so clean, mommy. Don't get mad at me, get mad at Alex, he's the one who threw food at the table!"

Scott reached over the table and wiped Emma's cheek with his napkin.

Then, he sternly scolded the younger boy, "No throwing food at the table, Alex, that's bad manners. You hit your mother, what do you have to say to her?"

Alex shoved the teenage boy sitting next to him and said, "Oli made me miss! I'm sorry mom, but I was aiming for Meg! I didn't mean to hit you."

Oli, Megan's boyfriend and the Summers' family friend, smiled good naturedly, "I'm sorry Mrs. Summers."

He had dark brown hair in a faux hawk and was a lean and lanky build, he had faded streaks of silver at the front of his hair though, inherited from his mother who had white bangs.

Emma thought he resembled Scott a little, with his lanky frame and cut brown hair and facial structure, and wondered about her oldest daughter and her similar taste in men that looked like her father.

Emma knew this was common in psychology, for people to tend to be attracted to those who resembled themselves or their parents, not in a creepy way but as in an evolutionary trait where they looked for mates that were similar to what they knew.

"Don't encourage him Oli!" Meg kicked her boyfriend's feet under the table, over her little brothers' legs.

Emma brewed a hot batch of hot cocoa after dinner and brought a mug to Scott, who was frowning over an article, in his chair as Meg and Oli played with Alex on the floor of the living room.

Scott gratefully took the hot chocolate and leaned up to kiss Emma's cheek. She smiled and turned so that he kissed her nose, then she put her fingers to his jaw and lifted her face so their lips met.

She sat on his lap and giggled as he blew a raspberry between her neck and chin.

Alex stopped from wrestling Oli on the floor and complained, "Ack, they're at it again!"

Meg giggled, watching, as she took a sip from her hot chocolate.

Scott laughed against Emma's neck and then blew into his mug.

"Isn't it almost bedtime, children?" Their mother lifted a brow at them.

Alex moaned, "No way momma! I'm not tired yet."

Emma turned back to Scott and looked down at the article he was reading, the title was, "Do You Know This Person?" It had a blurred picture of a blonde woman with cornflower blue eyes. Emma read on about how she had been discovered in a river, disorientated and identifiable but unable to completely comprehend who she was. Scott snapped the article shut and cleared his throat, "Maybe you shouldn't read that just yet."

He tossed the article aside and turned his attention back to his wife, tickling her stomach causing her legs to kick up in the air.

* * *

In bed that night, as Scott fell asleep after a long day of flying in the air, Emma turned towards the window, the shadows of branches dancing across the room as the storm continued. She thought back to the blurry image, and the possibility of meeting the woman that Scott had been involved with up until she was murdered in their shared apartment when he was away. Then he had met Emma, and they were reunited, but there was still always that nagging thought about the other woman, who had been so rudely taken from his life, who he would or may still have been with had fate not stepped in.

They had not broken up or were not going to, she had just been killed, so her being alive and back could mean so many things. It had been a time when Scott was finally moving on with his life, getting over wallowing for a trauamtic teen experience and his lost love, and growing up and creating a new life.

Emma tried to squeeze her eyes shut and concentrate on the thoughts of sleeping Scott, of her children now sound asleep after Oli had left.

It was no use, she could not get fear out of her head.

She had waited so long for this, so long for Scott, believing that she really would never meet him again. But he had come sweeping in like Prince Charming.

It was too good to be true.

She closed her eyes, and restless dreams came for her.

It was their wedding day again, the happiest moment but also a most dreaded time. Emma's family bothered to show up.

Her cruel sisters, Adrienne and Cordelia looked over the matrimonial bliss in an amused contempt and disbelief. They could hardly believe the wedding between those two specific people was finally going to happen, was a reality.

Emma could hardly believe it either as she smiled ecstatically at her dearly betrothed, so handsome and studly in his tuxedo, eyes only for her.

Her dreams became hot though, flames dancing around as a towering Adrienne leered down at Emma dancing on a wedding cake with a plastic Scott.

His handsome smile was etched onto his hard shiny face.

Adrienne's mint green eyes narrowed and she taunted, "Emma wearing white at this wedding is an abomination, remember that time she and Scott were caught at the sanitarium when she was 16? Oopsie was I not supposed to say that...Frost family secrets are like jewels for the media. Anyway, we all know it's not Scott's first time either, and we all know Emma was not his first... I'll admit I did have a very tempestuous and very passionate, romance and relations with the groom... I broke him though, thanks to my meddlesome youngest sister..."

Cordelia hissed, "He was a cutie I had to take him!" They were talking with a table of family friends and family.

This conversation had actually happened at the wedding. The dream sequence changed and it was a flashback to their wedding night, and Scott took Emma in his private jet, piloting it himself, to a private island where he would sweep her off her feet and share a very memorable first honeymoon night.

But when they landed, they were on the scratchy cot of the asylum again, and Emma was suddenly 16 years old and the memory itself was blissful, but suddenly she was very hot and warm, and the blankets were too much and a 17 year old Scott was suddenly too warm to the touch. He was suddenly burning, like a scalding, glowing metal and then he was ripped away from her by large hands waving around needles and syringes.

"Emma. Emma!" She woke with a start, to the familiar, concerned and adoring face that had woken her up those many years and nights ago when she had nightmares at the mental hospital.

She touched his face, panting. He put a hand against her forehead, cooling down her hot face. "You have a temperature."

She shook the blankets off of herself, realizing that she was sweating.

Opening the window, she weakly stated, "Just keep the window open I got hot." The storm had died down to a slow drizzle.

Scott poured her a glass of water which she gulped down appreciatively.

He questioned her with a worried look and she murmured, "I had a dream. My sisters were in it this time."

She watched as Scott's bare spine stiffened, he had an even greater fear and bitterness toward her sisters than even she had. She went on, "It was our wedding day...and then it turned into our wedding night but it wasn't...it went back to the first time we... consummated our love at the hospital...And they took you from me, Scott, you were taken from me all over again."

Putting his bare arms around her and holding her to his chest, he said, "It's okay, it was just a nightmare. I'm right here, I'm in front of you and I'm not going anywhere. I will always be here for you, nothing can take me away again."

* * *

Face to face with the Carol Danvers, the Captain Marvel of the CIA and SHEILD, Emma had to say, this woman's mind was uncannily exactly like how Carol Danvers' mind should be , but without being hers.

Emma telepathically scanned the woman's head, and found something to be off.

She looked at her husband's former girlfriend, an athletically built woman with long golden hair and large blue eyes staring vacantly back. Scott stood behind Emma with his fist apprehensively at his grim mouth.

He stared at Carol with a fervor of mixed feelings. He had identified her and brought her home for Emma to scan.

"Carol...you do know who you are?" Emma probed Carol gingerly. Carol replied, "I know I'm Carol Danvers, but I don't feel anything for myself. I remember everything in my life, but I can't feel anything about it, or for it. I'm disassociated from everything I know. I know that man behind you, Scott, is my lover, and a very good one at that, but I just don't remember how I felt about him anymore, I don't know how I felt about anything. I know I loved him and I know I cared, but I don't remember how to care, I don't care about anything right now of my past. The memories are there but all my feelings are gone."

Trying to speak carefully, Scott stated, "Carol...do you know what happened to you the day you disappeared? When I came back and I found out...my world went upside down. But even the CIA's best couldn't find out where your body could have gone."

"Some girl, her name was Rogue, she had strange white and brown hair, but she attacked me in our apartment. We fought each other all the way to the Golden State Bridge, and you know I'm strong, Scott, but it seemed like each time she touched me I got weaker and she got stronger. She went to kill me and threw me off the bridge, into the water. That's all I remember, then I woke up here and it's in the future, and you're married to this woman. I know you must probably feel guilty, but you know, I'm not upset at all. I-I don't feel anything."

Emma looked at Scott with concern for his reaction, and she declared, "Carol's head isn't exactly post traumatic...she really just has no emotional connection to her memories. Her whole life is in there, she knows what happened and who she is but she has lost all sense of her emotional capacities and relationships or sentimentality she has built up over the years. She is completely objective to her own life."

Just then, the doorbell rang in the Summers' estate.

Looking through the window, Scott tensed, "This Rogue person...you said white and brown hair? If you could believe it, someone who fits that description is standing outside the door. Oli's mom..."

Carol rushed over to look and then opened the door, anger knit on her face. She was ready to face the girl who had ruined her life, and she was ready to take her down.

As soon as she opened the door, Rogue cried out, "Look I'm sorry I tried to kill you and took your personality and memories but this all happened, just wait-."

A strange glow illuminated from Rogue to Carol, who suddenly opened her eyes looking around with confusion and panic.

Scott stepped forward, ready to protect her. He was illuminated too, and stopped in his tracks.

The illumination proceeded to Emma. They fell to the ground, realization dawning on their faces.

Rogue announced, "We don't have much time, I'm sorry that was harsh but we have to fix reality, before Magneto and Scarlet Witch fully complete their goals. A girl named Layla Miller illuminated me and she's with Logan now, spreading to everyone else and restoring their memories."

Scott sat up looking down at his suit, and stuttered, "Oh my god...Oh no..."

Emma squatted down next to him in a shell shocked state and wondered aloud, "Yeah. Why are we married?"

Then looking at Carol, who looked at Scott, who looked at Carol, said at the same time as them, "You slept with each other." "We slept with each other?!"

* * *

When Emma Frost awoke outside of the X-Mansion, her nose bleeding from a no doubt, sensory psychic trip, she could not help but feel an initial pang of overwhelming sadness and regret, an emptiness.

Well first of all she was shell shocked beyond belief, but she realized that what Scarlet Witch had induced in the reality illusion she had thought she had lived up until reawakening, was that it made everybody's deepest, most dear desires and wishes to come true.

It was not so bad compared to what was real. But they had to fight it and come back, because it was not real.

Emma even recalled her kids in that alternate reality, whom she had false memories of raising, loving, and living with, in a happy home with Scott. She knew she had made it clear she was not the type to marry, as an independent leading woman, but some part of the life she had in that illusion was really what she wanted. She had not lost anything, but she felt a new hole in her heart she had not even known existed.

But they were back to reality, and reality meant some things that people want are not meant to be had because that's just how it worked.

She clutched her arms over herself and shivered though it was warm out. Scott had tracked Magneto down and fired his eyes at him.

Much had happened and now she was awake in her own cold hard reality and she had to say, she wished she had stayed asleep.

She heavily got up, knowing she had to go back in and find everyone, find Scott, and face the aftermath and make sense of things.

* * *

AN: dont u hate when an ending cops out and the whole story ends up being a dream!? it's like FTW.


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